He looked at her somberly. “We were worried about you. I’m glad to see that you survived. And that you’re here.”
Hutch nodded. “We have a problem,” she said. “Are we on a private channel?”
The muscles in his jaw moved. “No. But it doesn’t matter. Say what you have to say.”
“There was a communication breakdown somewhere. The Wildside has limited space. I wasn’t aware you had dependents.”
“What? For God’s sake, Woman, how could that happen?”
Maybe because nobody thought you’d be dumb enough to bring dependents out here. But she let it go. “Ship’s designed to carry thirty-one passengers. We—.”
“What’s that?” His face reddened, and she thought he was going to scream at her. “What are we supposed to do with the rest of our people?” He wiped the back of his hand against his mouth and looked to one side and then the other. He was listening to someone. Then: “Is another ship coming?”
“Maybe,” she said.
“Maybe.”
She looked at him. “Let me ask you a question. We got hit by an EMP.”
“It was a spillover from the jet. Happens once in a while. It wasn’t an EMP. Not strictly speaking.” He relaxed a bit, as if speaking about something else helped divert him from the choices he would have to make.
“It had the same effect. Fried everything on the hull.”
“Yes. A stream of high-energy particles will do that. It knocked us out, too. What’s your question?”
“Did you get back up? Have you been in contact with Serenity?”
“No. It’s too hot out there. We set up a transmitter inside so we could talk to you. It’s all we have.”
She swallowed and struggled to control her voice. “Then they don’t know the situation.”
“They certainly know we’ve gone dead. We were talking to them when it happened.”
“Do they know you need to evacuate?”
“We were advising them of that fact.”
It was like pulling teeth. “And did you make your point before you got blown off the circuit?”
He struggled to keep his temper. “Yes.”
Okay. They know he needs to get out. And they know the Wildside is too small. That should mean, has to mean, the Condor is on its way.
“Anything else, Captain Hutchins?”
There was. “Send us everything you have on the flare.”
It was still coming. It was big and it was hot and it was going to turn Renaissance into a memory. Its range had closed to 6.6 million klicks, and it was approaching at thirty-seven thousand kilometers per minute. She’d need an hour running in orbit before she could gain enough momentum to lift away.
She’d be able to get clear, but she was going to get her feet toasted.
She thanked him and signed off. Moments later, she saw a flash of silver in the mist. The station.
RENAISSANCE STATION WAS composed of three ancient superluminals: the Belize, a former Academy survey vessel; the Nakaguma, a ship that had once hauled supplies and people out to the terraformers at Quraqua; and the storied Harbinger, which had discovered the Noks, the only known living extraterrestrial civilization. There’d been a long fight to have the Harbinger declared a global monument. But the effort had failed, and the legendary ship would end its days out here in this inferno.
Their drives had been removed, hulls heavily reinforced, cooling systems beefed up. Thick connecting tubes joined them, and a vast array of sensors, antennas, particle detectors, transducers, and assorted other hardware covered the hulls.
The proud legend ACADEMY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY was emblazoned across the Nakaguma’s hull. And the after section of the Harbinger bore the Academy seal, a scroll and lamp framing the blue Earth of the World Council.
Ordinarily she would have turned the ship over to Bill, who liked to dock, or claimed he did. But with the sensors down, she switched to manual.
They’d hollowed out a substantial section of the Nakaguma, which was by far the largest of the three vessels, to create a service bay for incoming ships. She matched orbit and attitude and glided toward it. Several rows of utility lights blinked on to guide her, and a controller assisted. With systems down, it became fairly primitive. “A couple of degrees to port.” “Ease off a bit.” “That’s good. Keep coming.”
“You’re doing quite well,” said Bill.
AI’s weren’t supposed to display sarcasm, but there it was. “Thank you, Bill,” she said quietly.
She got smoothly through the doors into the interior of the Nakaguma, and eased into the dock.
“Switch to maintenance, Bill,” she said.
The AI acknowledged. Engines shut down, and power went to minimum. An access tube spiraled out of the dock and connected with her airlock. She checked to make sure her uniform looked good, opened the hatch, and strode through into Renaissance Station. Dimenna was waiting. He looked past her as if she didn’t exist. “You don’t have much time,” he said.
She needed to replace the burned-out gear on the hull.
Her passengers were already arriving. Mostly women and children. They were carrying luggage. A few of the younger kids had toys, model starships, balls, dolls.
Outside, two technicians in e-suits hurried along the docking skirt and inserted fuel lines.
Hutch stood back to let her passengers board. Others, husbands, friends, fathers probably, a few other women, filed out into the observation gallery. One of the women pushed her child forward, a sandy-haired boy about six. Tears were streaming down her eyes. She implored Hutch to take care of the child and turned to Dimenna. “I won’t leave him,” she said, referring to someone not present. “Put somebody else on in my place.”
“Mandy,” said the director.
“His name’s Jay,” Mandy told Hutch. She hugged the boy, the scene grew more tearful, and then she was gone, pushing back through those trying to get on board.
“We decided not to crowd the ship,” said Dimenna. “Some of us are staying.”
“That’s not the way—”
He held up a hand. It was decided. “Her husband is a department head.”
In that moment Hutch conceived a hatred for Barber that was stronger than any emotion she had felt in her life. She wanted him dead.
“I’ll get someone to replace her,” Dimenna said coldly. “How exactly do we handle this? Twenty-five of us have volunteered to stay. Is that the way we do it? Does that provide a reasonable number? Or can you take a couple more without compromising safety?”
It was the most terrible moment of her life.
“We don’t have to do it this way. We can load everybody up and—”
“This is the way we have chosen.”
He was right, of course. If everyone boarded the Wildside, they became extra mass, slowed acceleration, used up air, put the others at risk, and eventually, barring a miracle, would have to go out through the airlock. If they stayed, they were at least in a place where a rescuing vessel would know to come. Small enough chance, but maybe the best one there was.
“Hutch,” said Bill, “there are things you need to attend to if we’re to get going.”
The world swam around her, and she looked from Dimenna to the people staggering through the airlock, to children asking why their fathers were not coming, to the desperate faces gathered inside the gallery.
“Hutch.” Bill was getting louder. “It’s essential that we complete repairs on the hull. There is very little time.”
She scarcely heard him. Dimenna stood before her like a judge.
And that was the moment Preacher Brawley chose to ride to the rescue. The signal from the Condor might have been picked up earlier had any of the technicians at the station been at their posts. But Bill caught it, recognized it immediately for what it was.
“Hutch,” he told her, “I have good news.”
Chapter 2
September 2224
There are names written in her immortal scroll at which fame blushes.
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— WILLIAM HAZLITT, CHARACTERISTICS, XXII, 1823
WHEN THE ACADEMY announced that Clay Barber would receive the Commissioner’s Special Recognition Medal for his actions during the Renaissance Station incident, Hutch realized it was time to go. She had put in more than twenty years hauling people and cargo back and forth between Earth and its various outstations. The flights were long and dull. She spent weeks at a time inside her ship, usually with no crew, with a code that required her to minimize social relations with her passengers, with no clear skies or empty beaches or rainstorms or German restaurants. And without even recognition for services performed. For people’s rear ends bailed out.
Other women her age had families, had careers, at least had lovers. Unless something radical changed, Hutch had no prospect for marriage, no likelihood of advancement, and no serious chance for anything other than an occasional ricochet romance. She was never in one place long enough.
Moreover, the Academy had now hung her out to dry twice during the last year, once at Deepsix, and now at Renaissance Station. It was enough. Time to walk away. Find a nice quiet job somewhere as a lifeguard or a forest ranger. Her retirement money would keep a roof over her head, so she could afford to do whatever she liked.
She returned to Serenity for refueling and maintenance, then carried some of the Renaissance Station personnel back to Earth. It was a five-week flight, and she spent most of it on the bridge making plans.
Her passengers grumbled extensively about management and how their lives had been needlessly jeopardized. And they formed a community bond on the way home, a bond that might have been stronger than whatever had held them together at Renaissance, because they’d now come through a terrifying experience together.
They played bridge and hung out in the common room and organized picnics on a virtual beach. Although Hutch was not excluded, and was in fact quite popular with them, especially some of the younger males, she was nevertheless always an outsider, the woman who, in their view, was never at risk.
Two weeks out, she received an invitation to the Clay Barber ceremony, which would be conducted at the Academy’s Brimson Hall in Arlington on Founder’s Day, September 29. She would pass on that, thank you very much. But then she noticed Preacher’s name on the guest list.
Well, that put a different light on the occasion. Not that she was going to chase him around or anything, but what the hell.
Meantime she composed her request for retirement. She had thirty days’ leave coming up, and she’d take her option to get paid for the time and just walk out the door when she got home.
“Are you really not coming back?” asked Bill. His image had become young, virile, handsome. He flashed a sly smile, filled with promise.
“You don’t have enough software, Bill, to make it work.”
He laughed. But there was a solemn ring to the sound. “I will miss you, Hutch.”
“I’ll miss you too, partner.”
THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY was heavily represented at the banquet. In addition, several major and a number of minor politicians attended and got their pictures taken, and members of several philanthropic groups who had actively supported the Academy since its inception sat with the commissioner at the head table. Estel Triplett, who had played Ginny Hazeltine in the previous year’s megahit, FTL, opened the festivities with a soulful rendering of “Lost in the Stars.”
They served chicken and rice with green beans and an array of fruit and desserts. As banquets usually went, the food wasn’t bad.
Sylvia Virgil, the Academy’s Director of Operations, emceed the program, introduced the guests, and gave special recognition to Matthew Brawley, who, alerted by Barber, had “arrived at the critical moment” to rescue Dr. Dimenna, his team, and their dependents. Preach came forward, received a plaque, and got a round of applause. He looked like a hero. He was only a bit over average height, but he walked like a man who would not hesitate to tangle with a tiger. Somehow, he also managed a self-deprecating aw-shucks smile that suggested we are all heroes, that he just happened to be in the right place.
Hutch watched him and became conscious of her heartbeat. Well, why not? She was entitled.
Virgil next asked all the persons to stand who had been at Renaissance Station when the catastrophe developed. They were seated more or less together in the front of the banquet hall on the left. They got up and smiled back at the audience while imagers homed in and applause rolled through the room. One of the smaller children looked around, bewildered.
The director next summoned Senator Allen Nazarian to present the award to Barber.
Nazarian sat on the Science and Research Committee, where he functioned as a champion of Academy funding. He was one of the widest human beings Hutch had ever seen, but despite his girth, he rose with grace, acknowledged the applause, strode to the lectern, and looked out across the tables. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said in his Boston Brahmin tones, “it’s an honor to be with you tonight on this auspicious occasion.”
He went on in a high-flown manner for several minutes, talking about the dangers and rigors of doing research in the hostile environment beyond Earth. “Our people constantly put their lives at risk. And one has only to stroll through these buildings to see plaques commemorating those who have made the ultimate sacrifice.
“Fortunately, tonight, there’ll be no memorial. No monument. And we owe that happy fact to the judgment and swift response of one man. Everyone here knows the story, how Barber correctly interpreted the danger when communications were lost almost simultaneously with both Renaissance Station and with the Wildside.”
Hutch’s emotions must have been showing: A young man on her right asked if she were okay.
“Clay recognized the fingerprint of an EMP event,” Nazarian continued. “And he realized that the disruption meant conditions at Proteus had worsened. It was possible that both Renaissance Station and the ship were in danger. He could not know for certain what was happening, and there was only one vessel, the Condor, that could be sent to the rescue. But the distance between the Condor and the people at Proteus was increasing every minute he delayed.
“In the best traditions of the Academy, he assumed the worst and diverted the Condor, and to that happy judgment, we owe the lives of the men, women, and children who had been living and working at Proteus.” He turned and looked to his left. “Dr. Barber.”
Barber, who’d been seated at a front table, rose with all due modesty. Smiled at the audience. Started forward.
Nazarian bent down behind the lectern, retrieved an object wrapped in green cloth. It was a medallion. “It gives me great pleasure…”
Barber beamed.
Nazarian read from the inscription. “…for exercising judgment and initiative, resulting in the rescue of the fifty-six persons at Renaissance Station. Given in recognition by the commissioner, September 29, 2224.”
Dimenna, seated a table away from Hutch, glanced over his shoulder at her, then leaned toward her. “Bet you’re glad he was there to pull your chestnuts out of the fire, Hutchins.”
Barber held the award high for everyone to see, shook Nazarian’s hand, and turned to the audience. He confessed he had done nothing that any other operations chief under the circumstances wouldn’t have done. The inference to be drawn from the evidence had been clear enough. He thanked Sara Smith, a watch officer who’d called his attention to the anomaly. And Preacher—Barber dropped the Matthew and used the name by which the man was really known—Brawley who, when alerted to the danger, had not hesitated to go to the rescue. At his insistence, Matt stood for a second round of cheers. Oh, and Priscilla Hutchins, who helped get some of the staff out on the Wildside, was here also. Hutch rose to scattered applause.
WHEN IT WAS over, she noticed that Preach began to head her way. She idled out through a rear door, giving him time. She was talking to a couple of the Academy’s administrative people when he caught up, beamed a smile at her, bent down, and kissed her chastely on one cheek. “
Good to see you again, Hutch,” he said.
There’d been no chance to talk during the rescue. She’d had to replace her damaged electronics while the Condor waited to dock. And while she scrambled across the hull, locking in the new gear, Preach had fidgeted. “I don’t want to rush you, babe,” he’d said. And, “It’s not getting any earlier out here.”
She’d wrapped the job in seventeen minutes flat, and three minutes later wished him luck and cleared the area.
She was well ahead of the flare and knew the Wildside would have no problem. The Condor, though, was going to need a quick getaway and lots of acceleration. It would be a bumpy ride, accompanied by a serious scare. But the Preacher brought them through and delivered everyone several days later to Serenity Station. By then Hutch was gone, on her way home.
“I didn’t know you were going to be here,” he said. “They told me you were on assignment.”
Hutch nodded. “I’m not surprised. They think everybody’s always on assignment.”
“Does the Academy really give awards when people are smart enough to overcome a screwup that shouldn’t have happened in the first place?”
She laughed and waved the question away. “I was never so glad to see anybody in my life, Preach.” She’d told him from the Wildside how grateful she was for his timely appearance, and he’d smiled and shrugged and allowed as how he was glad to have been in a position to help.
“I’ll say this for him though,” said Preach. “I have to like anybody who gives me the chance to win the gratitude of a beautiful woman.” He looked around the banquet hall. “How about joining me,” he said, “for a drink at the Skyway?”
“If you’ll show me your plaque.”
He nodded and unwrapped it for her. It carried an image of the Condor, and the legend, Salvation Express. It was made of burnished oak, and she felt mildly jealous.
“Salvation Express?” she said.
He let his amusement show. “Better than The Preacher Rides Again, which they tell me was their first choice.”
They were starting for the door when Virgil spotted them, signaled that they should wait, and came over. “Well,” she said, glancing from one to the other, “imagine finding you two together.”
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