Nimbus

by Jacey Bedford

  Out of control.

  And now, so was Ben.

  He shoved with his hands and pulled his feet beneath him, coming upright under the chin of the first guard who’d moved in too close. Delivering his own kick to the side of guard number three’s head, he launched himself at Crowder with a two-fisted punch to the gut. Crowder staggered back with an audible “Ooof.”

  “Bastard!” Ben said through his teeth.

  Crowder opened his mouth to reply, but he could barely make a sound. The two guards still on their feet came at Ben from either side and effectively pinned him.

  “You gave it your best shot, Benjamin.” Crowder’s breath came in ragged wheezes as he fought for control of his diaphragm. “But I win in the end.”

  “I don’t think so.” Tori LeBon’s voice cut through his words.

  The whole of the Trust board had poured out of their meeting and into the elevator lobby.

  His would-be assassins had frozen at the sight of Jess Jessop’s stunner. He fired anyway. Three times. The two at Ben’s elbows dropped to the floor, the one already down twitched and lay still.

  The Free Company came charging out into the lobby, too, forcing the board members closer to Crowder.

  “That was ill done,” Tori LeBon said. “I think you’d better offer your resignation, Gabrius.”

  “Seconded.” Whittle took another pace forward.

  “I would have seconded the motion if he hadn’t.” Hyde joined him.

  “Me, too,” Beth Vanders said, taking another pace forward.

  “I’ve never wanted anything for myself,” Crowder yelled. “The rest of you have skimmed profits where you could and built your own fortunes. All I’ve ever done is work for the Trust. I’ve been faithful. I’ve no more credits in the bank now than when I took on this job. My ancestor Anne DiDoran—”

  LeBon laughed. “Oh, Gabrius, you were such an easy convert. You spent hardly any time at all in Neural Readjustment as a new recruit, yet you came out believing you had a direct connection to Anne DiDoran. The Trust is your whole life! Of course, it is. My predecessor ensured it. I’ve known your history since I became chair of the board.”

  Crowder’s expression passed through shock and disbelief to realization and anger.

  Of course . . .

  Ben’s face may have mirrored Crowder’s as he took in the information. He thought of the decisions Crowder had made. Yes, always doing the best he could for the Trust, sometimes at the expense of ordinary people. The man had never been his own master. Maybe the friendship he’d once offered Ben was a mark of the man he might have been. Ben didn’t know whether to feel angry or sorry for him.

  “But sometimes things work too well.” LeBon stepped forward. “You’ve become a liability, an embarrassment.”

  Sweat beaded on Crowder’s forehead. He stepped toward the gaping hole where the elevator should be. His left arm flailed as he reached out to slap the control and summon it, not once, but three times. The panel gave a jaunty ping.

  Ben glanced upward. The elevator hadn’t moved.

  “I guess this is unanimous,” Zikhali stepped forward. “We’ve heard enough today.”

  LeBon smiled, with lips and teeth only. “The best thing you can do for the Trust now, Gabrius, is to resign. Your final act of true loyalty.”

  Crowder searched the faces of his fellow board members. His gaze came to rest on a young man who slid through the crowd to stand beside him. “Stefan, I knew I could rely on you.”

  “Why? Because you sent me to have my mind altered? Didn’t think I knew? My loyalty lies with the lady who let me out of there whole.” He glanced sideways to LeBon. “Who do you think I’ve been reporting to?”

  She nodded back. “You know what to do, Stefan.”

  Stefan’s foot snaked out. Crowder tried to keep his balance and staggered into the elevator that wasn’t there.

  “Resignation accepted,” LeBon said.

  For a moment Crowder teetered on the edge, realizing what he’d done. He reached out toward Ben.

  He was close enough to touch.

  Ben could have grabbed him.

  But he didn’t.

  Crowder fell without a sound.

  “Ben!”

  Cara’s knees felt like jelly, but she elbowed through the crowd and stood between Ben and Tori LeBon in case she felt like getting rid of another inconvenience. Ronan followed, then Wenna and Jake. Tengue and Gwala dragged the unconscious guards out of the way and stepped over them. Jack drove his float chair forward, too.

  She glanced backward at the elevator shaft. Damn silly conceit to have an invisible elevator. Surely, there should have been a fail-safe. She took in the three downed guards . . . unless they’d already overridden it and set it up for Ben to be the one to take the fall.

  How close had she come to losing him?

  LeBon stepped back. “The Trust board has unanimously agreed to accept the offer on the table. We will close our jump gates in stages, beginning immediately, allowing essential supplies through only. Once we retrofit our ships, we’ll destroy the gates in a phased operation.”

  “As will we.” Akiko Yamada stepped forward, peered over the edge of the elevator shaft and shrugged. “Waste of a good brain. Suicide, of course.”

  “No doubt about that,” LeBon said. “It’s a hell of a way to resign. So sad. He will be missed.” She held out her hand to Yamada. “Here’s to a successful project to solve the platinum problem once and for all. I suggest we set up a joint research facility.”

  “Your place or ours?” Yamada jerked her head toward the building surrounding them.

  “How about Chenon? They’ll need help regenerating infrastructure after the attack.”

  “As long as we remove those three jump gates with immediate effect.”

  “Agreed.”

  They shook on it.

  LeBon turned to Ben and all the Free Company members. “The charges against all of you were instigated by the dear departed Mr. Crowder. Without him, we find that there isn’t enough evidence for the Trust to press any kind of case.”

  “Ditto Alphacorp,” Yamada added. “Of course, there will be conditions.”

  “Our lips are sealed,” Ben said.

  “Minds, too,” Cara said.

  With that, Jessop stepped forward and unlocked Ben’s shackles.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  NIMBUS

  “HOW LONG DO YOU THINK IT WILL TAKE them to realize their access to foldspace will be limited not by their ships, but by the pilots who can fly them?” Cara asked.

  “Not long,” Ben said. “Eve Moyo already knows, but she didn’t see fit to point it out, so there’s no reason we should. But by the time they realize not every pilot can be retrained, it will be too late. The jump gate network will be broken, the hubs turned into staging posts servicing a smaller number of jumpships, no doubt, but still in business—most of them anyway.”

  They were back at the hotel lobby in Durban, preparing to leave. Solar Wind waited for them at the spaceport.

  Malusi Duma, arm still around Nan’s waist, came and offered his hand to Ben.

  “Thank you for all your help, sir,” Ben said, “and thank you for employing Mr. Wong on my behalf.”

  “Don’t forget to call me Mkhulu. All my other grandchildren do.”

  “Are there a lot of us?”

  His grandfather smiled. “Oh, yes. I have been married four times. I have nine children and twenty-eight grandchildren. There are great-grandchildren as well, but I’ve lost count.”

  “But you’re not married right now.” Ben looked pointedly at his grandfather’s arm, suddenly feeling protective of Nan, her heart if not her virtue.

  Nan laughed. “That horse bolted the stable a long time ago. I’m going to stick around on Earth for a while, Reska. Tell Rion and the b
oys I’ll be home before harvest.”

  She stepped forward and kissed his cheek.

  His grandfather, Mkhulu, watched her fondly. “You should come and spend some time with us as well, Ben, and meet your family. It would be good to get to know you better.”

  “One day I will.”

  “But you still have things to do, places to go, promises to keep. Is that right?”

  Ben smiled. “Closing the jump gates is going to be a huge change. We’ll need to train jumpship pilots, and set up emergency supply routes for those colonies that still rely on imports. Until we solve the platinum problem, we’re still going to be polluting foldspace, though not as much as we do now. We’ve made a start, but there’s still plenty to take care of.”

  The loose ends could keep him busy for a lifetime. Pilot training was only the start. There were still questions about foldspace. Could the Nimbus’ human avatars be rehabilitated? That wasn’t Ben’s problem now. There were captives from Chenon, so the megacorps and the FPA would have to work on it, too.

  Nan raised one eyebrow. “Don’t take it all on your own shoulders. Share the load.”

  “He will.” Cara had slipped up to his side.

  Nan looked at them both and smiled.

  The journey home had a celebratory air. The flight deck was full of laughter and relief. Jake cracked jokes, and even Hilde laughed, bandaged and sitting next to Ronan in the bucket seats.

  Ben didn’t worry about the dips into and out of foldspace. They were so brief that encountering the Nimbus was unlikely. Maybe when the easy fodder from the jump gates disappeared, that would change. The Nimbus could become a wilier predator. He wondered whether it would be possible to send a message to it. Tell it they would prevent further incursions into realspace and defend their ships and settlements with vigor. But also could they tell it that they hadn’t known about the pollution, or at least not about its effects, and they would be seeking an effective solution. Was it even possible to explain such human concepts to an entity with no shared language?

  *What are you thinking?* Cara asked.

  *That there’s one more thing.*

  *Why am I not surprised? It’s the Nimbus, isn’t it?*

  *We’ve done it a great disservice. Yes, it’s terrifying, but it didn’t start trying to kill us until we started to fill its home with deadly platinum.*

  *What are you thinking?*

  *Kitty Keely. She wants to go back to the Nimbus. Why?*

  Cara shrugged. *Let’s ask her.*

  On Crossways, the Free Company came together to exclaim and congratulate. They were truly free at last, no longer wanted criminals. For some of them, it meant being able to contact their families again and either return to them or bring them to Crossways. They all had choices now, and not all of them would stay. But for some of them, the Free Company was their family. Yan Gwenn had been wrong; they would not simply drift apart.

  Jussaro had hitched a ride from Olyanda to offer his congratulations in person and to report on the progress of Sanctuary.

  Garrick came by Blue Seven to collect Mother Ramona.

  “You did the right thing to offer the jump drives to the megacorps,” Ben said. “It’s what clinched the deal.”

  “Sometimes you have to give to receive,” Garrick said.

  “How are the dreams?” Cara asked.

  Garrick lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I’m learning to live with them. Sometimes that’s all you can do. At least with the damping pin Mona is getting a good night’s sleep, and I hope you are, too.”

  “Much better.”

  “Good.”

  “And how shall we sleep tonight?” Ben lowered his lips to the side of Cara’s neck and whispered.

  “Is that an invitation?”

  “Only if you want it to be.”

  “I do.”

  “Do you suppose we could sneak off now without anyone noticing?”

  “I’m sure they’ll notice. Does it bother you?”

  “Not in the slightest.”

  “Let’s go, then.” She took his hand.

  Cara stretched in bed. Her world was coming right again. Ben was a warm mound beside her, still sleeping soundly after a glorious night. They should fall out more often if reunions were always so good.

  Her mind turned to breakfast and then beyond.

  Kitty Keely. Did she truly want to return to the Nimbus?

  Ben turned in bed, and Cara knew he was awake. “I don’t suppose I could talk you into taking the day off?”

  He groaned. “Don’t tempt me. Let’s get this last thing over.”

  “Kitty.”

  “Yes. We need to talk to Ronan, and to Syke, too. He’s the only one who can stand as an advocate for her.”

  “Breakfast first.”

  “I think we can take time for that.”

  They breakfasted in the canteen alongside a dozen other late risers, receiving knowing looks from some, which Ben answered with a grin.

  “I sent a message for Syke to join us. I hope you don’t mind,” Ben said.

  “Better to get the Kitty thing over with.”

  “I thought so.”

  Syke arrived as they were finishing up. Ben explained his thoughts about Kitty and the Nimbus.

  For the longest time Syke didn’t say a word, then he nodded. “She talks to me, but she’s not happy. She’s placid and then she turns into something wild, without any reason or explanation. She’s becoming more and more divorced from her former life, less and less like herself. There’s not much of Kitty left, the Kitty I knew, I mean. She looks like Kitty, but that’s all. She keeps asking to go home and she means back to the Nimbus.”

  “I’m sorry,” Cara said. “I know you cared for her.”

  “I still do, but you know what they say: if you love someone, let them go.”

  Ben nodded. “If we take her into foldspace, do you want to come with us?”

  “Yes. You will give her a choice, right?”

  “Of course.”

  Ronan admitted none of his regression therapy had penetrated the shell she wore. Kitty was most relaxed when talking to Syke, but even that was failing lately. She alternated between bouts of violence and sullen depression.

  “I’ve tried everything,” Ronan said. “At this rate, she’ll end up in an institution for the violently insane. None of us wants that, but she’s dangerous to others, and probably to herself as well. The Nimbus started all this. Maybe the Nimbus can finish it, one way or another.”

  “You realize she might not come back?”

  “Give her a choice. When she’s not actively trying to kill someone, she’s as rational as anyone.”

  So Cara, Ben, Ronan, and Syke confronted Kitty through her glass window.

  “This looks serious,” Kitty said. “A delegation. For me. Should I be flattered?”

  “We’ve come to see what you want to do,” Cara said. “You keep saying you want to go home, but where is home? Do you want to go back to your mother?”

  “My mother?”

  “You used to be terribly worried about her.”

  “Did I?”

  “Kitty,” Syke said. “Look at me.”

  She did.

  He put his right hand on to the glass and she pressed her own against it from the other side.

  “I care for you, Kitty. But I want you to be happy. Do you truly want to go back to the Nimbus?”

  She took a deep breath. “More than anything.”

  “Ask her if she can take a message?” Ben whispered.

  “I heard that,” Kitty said. “What do you want it to know?”

  “We didn’t know about the platinum pollution. Now we know, we’re working hard to solve the problem. In the interim, we’ll be closing all the gates. There will be far fewer ships, less pollution
, and eventually no pollution at all.”

  She nodded.

  “Once the gates are closed, the Nimbus won’t be able to send its armies. It won’t need all those people. Can it send them home, not to kill, but to take up where they left off?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can you ask?”

  “Are you asking me to speak for humankind?”

  “I am.”

  “That’s a big ask. I’m not even sure if I’m hu—”

  “Can you do it?”

  “I believe so.”

  Garrick’s hand tightened on Mona’s as he listened to Ben Benjamin’s plan. Eventually, she winced and pulled her fingers free.

  “When are you going?” Garrick asked.

  “Now. No point waiting,” Ben said.

  “Do you think—”

  “I have no idea. It’s worth a try, though.”

  “We left Kitty behind once,” Garrick said. “Will we have to do it again?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You said ‘we,’” Mona said.

  “I did, didn’t I? I think I have to go, too. Kitty said the Nimbus sang to her. It sang to me, as well, but I didn’t hear the end of the song.”

  “Do you want to go?”

  Did he? He shook his head. “I don’t, but I might have to. Maybe if I face the Nimbus down, I won’t be so scared of it anymore.”

  “And what if you don’t come back?”

  “Then I certainly won’t be scared of it anymore.”

  His laugh sounded hollow, even to himself.

  “I’m coming, too,” Mona said.

  He didn’t even argue, but took her hand again, this time being careful not to crush her fingers.

  There were too many ways this could go wrong. Ben suited up, wishing he could have persuaded Cara to stay behind.

  *Tough,* she told him, picking up his thought.

  They walked to the office hand in hand.

  Wenna fussed around them, brushing a bit of nonexistent lint from Ben’s shoulder. “You two take care of each other.”

  “Remember what I said about keeping the Free Company together,” Ben said.