Chapter 13 Section ii
Math. Math. And math. Ross lay abed staring at the ceiling, and then not seeing it at all. Seeing Galway’s boards, and going through the checks in his head, sequences, routine and otherwise. He’d shadow the boards, sometimes Fallan, sometimes Ashlan, whichever was on at the moment. In long ops sessions, the boards cycled. The live board ran the operation, the other and the number three served as check on the main, but the computer shunted actual control in a set rotation, twenty minutes on, then rest twenty. He sometimes got main when it was down to routine, and then Fallan or Ashlan was checking his moves, and he was, at such times, sweating, and trying never to have them have to override him.
Nav took over from Helm on jumps. Helm initiated, but Nav finished the operation. And he was a long, long way from taking the handoff.
But things could happen. People were fragile. And the knack of coming out of the fog of jump knowing what you’d set yourself to know, mentally fit to snatch control from the computer and deal with it if there was a problem—he was a long, long way from that. He wasn’t wholly sure he could do it, but Niall had slid him in when Abel had broken down, had a seizure right at his post, and him only thirty-one ship-years.
He’d liked Abel. Funny. Likeable. And dead at thirty-one, for reasons, their medic said, that he’d been hyping himself on drugs to come up from the drug that tranked you down for jump.
Why do a thing like that? Because Abel didn’t want to fail. And his team kept helping him, saying it didn’t matter, they were fast up, and he’d overcome it. It was a sluggish metabolism. Some people were slower than others, but Abel wasn’t a washout, give it a while.
Abel had given it something else, God knew where he’d gotten it, or what desperation had made him try it, but Bess swore she hadn’t prescribed it. Abel had left a physical note, saying the name of the drug, which Bess recognized; and saying he thought it would work, and confessing what he hadn’t told anybody, that he was seeing spooks in the jump-sleep, and his nightmare was not coming clear of them, that he was finding it harder and harder to come back . . .
God, that was the last thing he wanted to think about on the eve of undock. He’d really liked Abel. Abel had been the silly one, and the buffer between him and the real controls. Fallan had taken it harder than any of them. And that was when Niall had set him to watch Fallan, to stay close to him on Glory Strip—which was where it had happened.
And since then he’d tagged close to Fallan, on Bryant’s, and Alpha, and Glory, three years sitting Nav 1.3, and almost, Fallan and the others said, ready to take them through a jump.
Not yet. Damned sure not on this one. You don’t have to go, Fallan had said to him, and he knew it was because Fallan was kind-hearted and because a trainee Nav 1 was still not stable enough or practiced enough to do them that much good.
Except to fend off the spooks and be level-headed and not have Abel’s unlucky ghost sitting fourth in their memories. He was himself, Ross Monahan, and not Abel, and he could, if nothing else, spell them in the quiet times and fill a seat that was useless empty, and be one more set of senses trained on a problem.
Let them go without him? He couldn’t. Absolutely not an option.
And the experience—shadowing the boards on the first-ever FTL to Sol? He could have free drinks off that story when he was old as Fallan.
He rehearsed the boards until his head hurt. He packed—he had stored pictures of Jen; and his pocket com gave them up to a more permanent storage, a little unit he had that attached to the wall of his cabin and would display those pictures in a slideshow any time he wanted. He packed everything he’d brought off the ship; and a few treasures going back. He had patches from Finity’s End, from Little Bear, Mumtaz, and Nomad, and Jen had given him a few Alpha had never seen: Dublin, notably, the second mega-ship, a longhauler from the far side of Cyteen, the legendary Reillys. It was a collection he’d built from his junior-junior years, and it had doubled on this layover. If he sold them, to real collectors, hell, he’d make a small Strip-side fortune, but they were not for sale. He always carried a few extra Galway patches, in hopes of a trade.
And this time—he wondered if ships at Sol had the custom at all. It’d be something to bring back.
Well, Galway patches were going to be beyond popular when they did get back. God, when they did get back, Jen would hear, wouldn’t she? She’d get the rumor, wherever she was. And Niall and JR Neihart had talked and might talk again—it was certain the greatest Pell ship would be interested in what they could report.
So a meeting with Jen wasn’t out of the question. It might happen within a year of their getting back.
Books. A whole library of stored books, to trade about. Some games. He’d picked up two new ones from shops that hadn’t seen major new games in years. It took minds off the deep dark, and God knew, it was going to be the deepest and loneliest dark he’d ever visited, out there where you were sure spooks made the pinging on your hull and scan picked up things you couldn’t see twice. He’d thought Glory was a lonely run.
Excited, God, yes. Terrified? With every reason. But excited began to win out. It was the chance of a lifetime. Of any number of lifetimes.
And he’d have things to tell Peg. And his mum. And Jen. Things to tell every Monahan who’d had to stay behind and every spacer who hadn’t made the trip.
No question.
Chapter 13 Section iii
They’d gotten through the undock party. Abrezio, with the monitors showing a tranquil maindawn on the Strip, had reports on his desk that nothing, absolutely nothing untoward had transpired during maindark, despite the considerable consumption of alcohol. A couple of Firenzes had fallen asleep on a bench, not exactly depravity and crime, had moved on when requested; and another couple had shed clothes and gone at it in a section of Spacer’s Rest hallway, ignorant of or ignoring the security cameras.
For an undock party—with the visitors in conspicuous attendance and Rosie’s spilling out onto the open Strip—it was astonishingly well-behaved. He’d ordered enforcement to stay clear and leave celebrants able to walk to find their own way, and to politely escort or cart those who couldn’t to their ship’s sleepover. The gathering had broken up at the scheduled time, the Monahans had gone to their sleepover, the visitors had done the same, and only a ragtag of Gallis and Rodriguezes had stayed up to all hours at the one bar he’d allowed to stay open through the night, the Pearly Gate—a moneymaker on such occasions, and a rotating permission with a little risk of untoward behavior.
Unless one counted some damage to a pool table, it had gone very well, and the Pearly Gate wasn’t complaining.
The word had not gotten out what Galway was really up to. The boards listed Bryant’s Star, and the clock was continuing to run for an 1100h departure.
At about 0900h the essential crew would board, power up, and Galway would pull out, at which point a hundred plus Monahans who weren’t going would pick up their baggage, return to the hotel they’d just vacated, and check back in.
Galway, meanwhile, was going to pull out and quietly take a vector that nobody in ops was going to believe when they saw it.
At that point, he could look forward to the personal pleasure of informing Andrew Jackson Cruz that Galway was on her way and there wasn’t a damned thing Andrew Jackson Cruz could do about it. The message had gone. Any message Cruz sent would look like a whining postscript.
Was Cruz going to be happy with him?
Oh, no. Definitely not.
Was Cruz going to use his actions as an excuse to gain control of the station? To try to make himself the hero and Ben Abrezio the landgrabber? Cruz might try. But the fact that the coordinates existed and were on their way to Sol . . . one way or another . . . and that they now had to deal with Bryant’s, Venture, Pell and points beyond regarding that imminent arrival—threw the matter into a realm of politics in which Cruz had no crede
ntials, and not even a mandate from Sol. And that, if it did come in the form of EC reps on the return trip . . . would arrive far too late.
Because a hundred and more people left on the dock were not going to keep the secret, and if all of them didn’t know, those that did would spill it before the day was done. Once it was out, every crew on the Strip would hear it, and word would get back to every star-station in succession, a wavefront agitating every political situation on every station as far as ships had ever gone.
Sol was coming. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon.
It was going to be an interesting evening on the Strip and in the ordinary corridors and meeting-spaces of the station. Elation. Apprehension. Doubt. All those things.
Abrezio was planning on a double shift. He might be in his office through the night, but he was set up to issue orders nicely drawn up, to keep enforcement on the Strip to a minimum presence, to have the bars open and a discount on drinks. It was going to be a celebration. The hangover might come in a day or so when they had to take sober thought and hold some meetings.
He had a little confidence that JR Neihart was going to have the Monahans on his hands, and that he was going to keep his word and accept the responsibility—he had no doubt that he was going to have Neihart arriving at his office before tomorrow maindark, and that there were going to be demands for the coordinates, data that would be handed to Niall on his way through the hatch and not before.
He had been asking himself about that one ever since his bargain with Niall Monahan.
Question was, a big question, did he assume that JR Neihart would be surprised when the majority of Galway crew was left on the Strip? Certainly when Galway took out in a Sol-ward vector, the personnel who’d stayed on Finity’s End despite the rules were going to notice that fact. Probably there were personnel aboard the three other ships that would likewise observe it.
But had Niall Monahan already told him? Would Niall leave his people here without knowing he had the support of this new organization? In Niall’s place, he’d be worried about losing that support, if Neihart could claim it was made under false pretenses. And if he were Neihart, he’d arrange some means of getting those coordinates, perhaps in a coded message prior to Galways’s jump, as part of the deal.
So assuming Neihart would know, one way or another, before he could call him into the office for a meeting . . . assuming there was a fairly good chance Niall Monahan would transmit those coordinates to Neihart before leaving the system . . . assuming all that, should he call Neihart in, explain everything, give him the coordinates as an act of good faith, if nothing else?
It was a question: How powerful was this organization of Neihart’s and was it or was it not somehow in league with Pell? Either way, what could Neihart do with them, other than spread them throughout the Beyond? And that would be a footnote to the knowledge that they existed at all. Risk his expensive ship and overjump Galway to test them himself? To what purpose? The EC wasn’t about to deal with a Pell ship directly.
So . . . say he would give the numbers to Neihart, send them to Pell with his blessing, in effect, could he, in turn, get Neihart to help broker a peaceful negotiation with the Konstantins? God knew the man had the skills. If he was truthful in his aims to help the merchanters and keep all the stations alive . . .
What, exactly, was wrong with easing the contact between Sol and Pell?
Well, a lot of things. Pell would play politics—how not?—and Sol would counter. Being a broker between the two, he’d deal with the unhappiness of one or the other. Probably both. But upsetting Sol by an action Sol hadn’t approved was not a fine prospect either.
And yet, when Sol got into records here, Sol would find out he and his predecessors had made unapproved decisions every day of every year. Welcome to reality, he’d say . . . provided he could greet those incoming officials with a healthy station and profitable trade system.
So: Pell was going to hear. And one thing you could say about the Konstantins—they were not a committee, they didn’t answer to one, and they made decisions that stuck.
Right now—he’d be acting in his own arena. And while Cruz could complain, events were bound to run under their own power until Sol could receive Galway and organize an expedition . . . a number of fact-finders traveling on Galway, if they had any sense, to be told in great detail during a long voyage and a layover that there was a great deal wrong with Andy Cruz.
But they weren’t guaranteed to believe what they heard. Cruz came from Sol. Cruz had been sent here, with a mission, by people backing him. People with their own notions of what needed to be done out here.
One way and the other, JR Neihart was going to know and one way and the other, Andy Cruz was going to find a way to tattle-tale to Sol when they got here that the stationmaster had been colluding with the enemy. Hell, what was the difference, anyway, whether or not he told Neihart? Cruz had never shown any affection for the truth, and Cruz already accused him of said collusion. Were it not for the evidence time-stamped into official records, Cruz would say anything that advantaged him and disadvantaged his enemies . . .
Among whom Abrezio numbered himself—quite gladly lately.
If it were his fate alone, he wouldn’t hesitate a moment. He’d call in JR Neihart, read him the plain facts of the case he would see in a few hours—and give Captain Neihart the hint that if Pell were to make a gesture in the way of support for Alpha, that Alpha might reciprocate—that Alpha might soon become a good ally to have, in a universe again including Sol.
But—he had Callie to think of. His personal savings were small. A generous pension was what he’d counted on, and that came in doubt in a situation where Sol decided it wasn’t happy. So many, many things could happen for reasons he couldn’t predict or affect.
He owed Callie. It was going to be a hellish year of charges and countercharges in the administration—building up to, he hoped, a relatively realtime contact with Sol, maybe even within the year. And damned if the support of the Alpha ships, and their fledgling Alliance, wasn’t going to be key to making that contact favor him.
Callie would understand. Hell, Callie would tell him to stop thinking about her and do what was right. And right for Alpha . . . was to call Neihart in the instant Galway jumped . . . and come clean.
And then, in the little interlude before it all started, he’d take Callie out to her favorite restaurant, explain everything to her . . . then go home and really sleep for the first time since the first visitor had docked.
Chapter 13 Section iv
Checkout at the Fortune was cleared: Owen had checked everybody out, paid the bills, deactivated the station account, every action routine for a departure.
Everybody left the hotel, slung duffles onto the trundling flatbed that moved ahead of them and, by custom, cleared the path for walkers. They were all turned out, from minders carrying the two babies, and minders walking with the small cluster of youngsters, to elderly Jennet, Ennis, and Cam, who rode a little transport, too old to hike the distance to the mast entry, midway down the strip.
They couldn’t say goodbye, not even whisper it to close kin: they’d celebrated the undock last maindark, and those who knew, the most of the Monahans, were doing their best to do everything ordinary. Ross had his duffle, had his personal jump-packet in his jacket inner pocket, where there was no misplacing it, and he strode along with first shift, with the nav team, with Fallan and Ashlan. Ordinarily it was a cheerful procession, everybody already focused on their next port, on a different experience, old friends to meet there, if ships moved in their ordinary way.
This was another sort of thing. The kids weren’t going to get an inkling until most of the Family began collecting their duffles to hike back to wherever Owen got them lodging—likely right back at the Fortune, while the Fortune was going to be in the process of changing the sheets.
And while word was flying up and down the Strip t
hat everything, everywhere had changed.
He was excited. And scared as hell.
Other people on their own business, headed up or down the Strip, gave cheerful waves, sometimes called out a name, and they waved back, not expected to stop. When a Family headed for the mast, there could be no stragglers, no exceptions. He waved at certain hails—a great number came from Rosie’s frontage, where staff turned out, even Rosie himself.
There were occasional outsiders along the way, who also waved in the ordinary fashion. Some called out in their own ship-speak, friendly-sounding, so Monahans answered back in their own—“See you again!” That was a lucky thing to say. And spacers turned incredibly superstitious on setting out—favorite socks, lucky bracelets—he spotted them on cousins who weren’t going. The Monahans were calling up all the luck they owned and laying it on the shoulders of first shift, he read that message with no trouble. Peg had her great-great-gran’s rosary in her jacket on every undock, and he had no doubt she had it now, and might be “telling the beads,” as she called it, in her pocket. He hoped she would. They might be needing a miracle. All along there’d been some special people waiting for a last goodbye; but Jen hadn’t been among them; and it wasn’t Jen’s style, chasing after somebody who then had to hurry to catch up. He’d hoped a little, and dreaded seeing her, because if there was a moment that he still could stall out and lose his resolve, it might be seeing her and having to say goodbye all over again.
But he wouldn’t buckle in front of Jen, either. He was resolved on that.
And at last there were the doors to the masts, clear doors, a temperature barrier and a legal barrier and a crowd barrier, not the real division, yet, but final enough. They opened and they went inside, where another barrier screened the working offices—which usually were lighted.
Not today. Office Closed was lit, along with instructions for emergencies. Only one stationer administrative type was waiting there, a youngish man in a suit and long coat, the sort stationers wore in cold areas. He offered a hand to Niall, then took an envelope from his pocket and gave it to him, saying something that, in the noise of the heaters and a nearby working lift, Ross missed hearing.
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