Raven's Children

by Sabrina Chase

  The counter guy shook his head. “Nah, one of the people off of Criminy.”

  So much for that idea. Lorai blinked, following a new train of thought. “So why did he want to send something to a wireservice?”

  “Said the reporter wanted it sent right away. Smart thing to do, I suppose, though I wouldn’t stay around Criminy myself hoping for more.” The counter guy shook his head, making the mustache bob. Lorai tore her gaze away with an effort. What a weird thing to have on your face. How did he eat?

  She should pay attention. The InfoService guy had said the reporter sent the message ahead, because…‌ “You mean the reporter is still on Criminy?” Lorai asked, incredulous. She was starting to get a funny feeling about this.

  “That’s what the man said. Crazy, huh? I’d be on the first ship out.”

  “Yeah, me too.” Lorai waved vaguely at him, backing out of the store. The Star Hunter people might know how to deal with confidential and coded data, but if it didn’t involve a wrench she was better off trying something else.

  It made sense. Ennis had mentioned in the datatab that Harrington tended to show up in dangerous places other people avoided. A recently attacked station would be perfect for him. And how many other wireservice reporters would be out in the Fringe?

  Looked like Criminy was her next stop, assuming she could get there. She tried to ignore the sinking feeling in her gut. She didn’t have much choice. She had to find Harrington, and if he was in a war zone she’d just have to go there. Maybe the crabs wouldn’t come back.

  What had Ibakate said? Palmer’s ship was going to Criminy. She hoped it hadn’t left yet.

  ¤ ¤ ¤

  Ennis watched Moire pour the coffee. It was a different galley, but it was the same pot, the same chipped mugs she’d used to trick him all those months ago. Things were different now. She wasn’t pretending she would go back with him.

  “No, Penderhest could read just fine. He wanted me to learn how to speak correctly. Reading aloud was good practice.”

  “How very English.” Moire grinned at him. When she finished pouring, he took the mugs and switched them, and her grin widened. It wouldn’t help if she had drugged the coffee again, but it was the thought that counted.

  “Yes, he was.” Ennis shrugged. “It made a difference later. At least I didn’t sound like a criminal every time I spoke. Didn’t you say your mother made you do something like that?”

  She made a face. “Nah, that was just a literary competition. First and last time I did it. Poor Mom. She was so sure if I just made an effort I would write something famous.” Moire laughed. “Guess I did, at that. Trouble is, writing a hacking program tends to make you infamous, if people find out about it. Besides, it wasn’t something she could really brag about.”

  “Translate ‘hacking,’ please.” He was developing quite an archaic vocabulary, but she still came up with terms that confused him.

  “Deliberate, unauthorized entry and rummaging around in a computer network. Got me where I am today.” She raised her mug in a salute, and he did the same. Then they both drank. The coffee drinking was a tradition now. With every repetition the remembered pain lessened, replaced by something different, if no less painful.

  “How so?”

  She leaned back, tilting her head to one side. “I got caught. Trouble was, I only got caught because I found evidence of some other hackers in that computer, and I could tell they were up to something nasty. Government computer, too. Tried to let the owners know something was up, and that’s how they found me. They didn’t want any of the details out in a public trial, and I had stopped the bad guys, so…‌deals were made. I went to the Air Force, with strict rules about using their computers, and it was all downhill from there.”

  He could see the boundaries of painful memories ahead if he pursued the subject, so he refrained from asking any more questions despite his curiosity. It bothered him when he saw her remembering, and he always tried to steer the conversation away from anything that might bring bad times to mind.

  He usually saw her only at meals, in company with the crew. He wasn’t sure if this was deliberate on her part. He wasn’t sure if he was glad. But sometimes they drank coffee together and talked, and it was a small comfort.

  The shipboard routine would change now they were back at the sargasso, though. Dunkirk had made one brief stop to drop off Moire’s mysterious guest after leaving Sequoyah, and then they had come here. At least this time there were two pilots aboard and Moire didn’t look like a walking corpse.

  He heard stomping feet go past the galley. “Sounds like Gren is ready to go,” Ennis commented. “What can I do to help?”

  Moire gave him a thoughtful look. “We’re finishing the ship we worked on last time. Shouldn’t take long, then we’ll go back and see if Harrington’s sent the message. We’ll need to know what the crab needs if he’s coming with us, though. Why don’t you talk to him?” She grinned. “I hear crab translators have good job security.”

  “At least until the war ends,” he couldn’t help saying.

  “Yeah. When the war ends.” Moire grimaced. “While you’re at it, ask him why we’re fighting in the first place.”

  It was a good question, and one he’d wondered about before. As he suited up and traversed the carefully arranged wreckage between the salvage ship and Helios, the question echoed in another context. He wasn’t fighting Moire any more, but they didn’t really have peace, either. More of a strange cease–‌fire. How was he going to change that when she was constantly occupied with her crew and mysterious plans she wouldn’t tell him about?

  He’d practice on the crab. Maybe he’d get some ideas of what to do.

  Perwaty met him at the hatch. “Your captain called ahead to say you were coming,” he said, dogging the door shut again.

  “Not my captain,” Ennis said, feeling his face warm. “I’m…‌on loan.” He loosened the front of the suit so his uniform was visible, angry with himself. He belonged to Fleet, and he shouldn’t feel glad that someone had thought differently.

  Perwaty just stood and blinked for a moment. “Don’t think for a minute I’m complaining, because I was getting desperate enough to welcome being rescued by pirates, but you people are the strangest lot of humanity ever to share breathing space. You really are Fleet?” Ennis nodded. “And your…‌the captain, the others are too? She said she’d fought crabs.”

  “The captain has fought with Fleet, but she’s…‌an independent.”

  Perwaty snorted. “Ain’t that the truth. So what’s her plan?”

  “They want to fix some quarters for Radersent. I’m here to find out what he needs.”

  “He can do it himself better than he can explain it,” Perwaty said, leading the way. “That’s what happened here, anyway.”

  “How long did it take, though?” Ennis asked skeptically. “He doesn’t look completely healthy, and we’ve got a schedule.” Of sorts. At least, a schedule that would not permit three months for a wounded crab to do a cabin retrofit.

  “Something like four weeks, maybe. Mostly because it took so damn long moving things from his ship. I helped, of course. We got a lot of the words worked out then,” Perwaty said, sitting down at his workbench and pulling the reworked device toward him. “You know, things like ‘move it this way’ and ‘don’t drop it on my foot’?”

  The crab was already visible in the viewport window. Radersent was moving in a slow and gentle way, as if he were floating in moving water. Even the tendrils were in motion. It felt strange to Ennis how familiar the crab looked to him now.

  “He’s sure glad to see you.”

  Ennis glanced at Perwaty. “How can you tell?”

  “See what he’s doin’ there? I call it ‘happydancing.’ If he’s moving around like that, he’s in a good mood.” Perwaty looked up. “So what you want to say to him?”

  Using the limited vocabulary at their disposal, they managed to get the crab to understand they were going to move him to a d
ifferent human ship, and that Radersent should tell them what he needed.

  “Now he’s getting cryptic on me,” Perwaty complained. “What’s ‘[QUERY]SHIP’ supposed to mean? He knows he’s going on a ship. We just explained that.”

  “Maybe he wants to know which one,” Ennis suggested after mulling it over. “If it’s just to another wrecked ship, he might wonder why he should bother moving.”

  “Could be.” Perwaty bent over the modified scanner, tapping out the stored codes that would be understood by the crab. Nothing complex, of course. Simple, concrete nouns and verbs. Philosophical discussions would have to wait for the linguists.

  Ennis peered over Perwaty’s shoulder to see what he had entered. The screen displayed RADERSENT GO ROBERTS SHIP.

  Almost immediately a reply came back. [QUERY]RADERSENT GO SHIP SMALL SHE. [QUERY](MOVE, STAY) RADERSENT SLEEPING–‌PLACE SHIP SMALL SHE.

  He was beginning to see how the communications were structured. “May I give it a try?”

  “Oh, sure! Just tap here for a list of terms to select, and you have to hit ‘Test Pulse’ to send your message.”

  Ennis sat down at the bench, feeling the muscles in his back tense. He was getting a bad feeling that needed to be dealt with before they went any farther.

  [QUERY]SMALL SHE=ROBERTS

  YES

  If the crab considered Moire to be less dangerous because of her size, it might think it could succeed in attacking her. Radersent hadn’t shown any aggression at all, to anyone, but that could change. He needed to make the crab respect her.

  What could he tell him? The crab already knew she’d fought and killed crabs. Maybe he could tell him about the carrier. That should make an impression, one human destroying an immense crab ship by herself. He could hardly believe it himself sometimes, and he had been there when it happened.

  ROBERTS NOT SMALL DAMAGE. [PAST]ROBERTS DEAD BIG CRAB SHIP CONTAIN SMALL SHIP.

  That seemed to make an impression. At least, the crab wasn’t happydancing any more. He moved his tendrils slowly over his own communication device.

  [QUERY][PAST]WAIT.

  “What does that mean?” Ennis asked, pointing to the screen.

  Perwaty’s eyebrows went up. “That usually means how long until I get back, something like that. He’s asking for a time, but not in the future. How long ago, I guess.”

  Had the crab understood what he had said? Why was he asking how long ago it had happened? How long had it been? With a shock, he realized it had been over a year.

  “How do you do time, then?”

  “That’s a bit of a problem. We only got one unit of time figured out, something around twenty minutes for us. How long do you want to say?”

  “Fifteen months.”

  Perwaty mumbled under his breath as he made the calculations, then tapped in the equivalent number and timecode to the scanner.

  The effect was immediate. Radersent froze. Even his tendrils remained exactly in the same position they had been when the message was sent, immobile as stone.

  “What happened? Is he all right?” Ennis took a deep breath, hoping he hadn’t gone too far in frightening the crab. They still needed to talk to him. Maybe he was sick.

  “Well, ya know I was sayin’ the happydance meant he was feeling good? I’m guessing this means he ain’t happy at all.” Perwaty glared at Ennis. “What the hell you been telling him?”

  “Just the details of what the captain did, fighting crabs. He already knows that!”

  “Maybe he didn’t really understand, then.” Perwaty went over to the window, placing his hands on the surface and staring at the unmoving crab. Slowly the tendrils started to move again, and the long head turned toward the window. The sight of Perwaty seemed to reassure the crab, or maybe it was that he couldn’t see Ennis.

  Radersent reached slowly for the device again. Ennis waited impatiently for the message, hoping he would understand what the problem was.

  [QUERY]BIG CRAB SHIP=SHIP HERE x 5. [QUERY]SMALL CRAB SHIP=900.

  Ennis blinked. Radersent wanted the specs on the crab carrier? This was getting very strange. Even stranger, he was right. The size, the number of fighters it carried, they all matched.

  YES.

  A hooting sound came from the crab that he could hear through the window, but Radersent didn’t freeze this time.

  [QUERY]CHILD ROBERTS DEAD CRAB SHIP.

  Ennis quickly selected the terms to tell Radersent Moire had done it alone. To make sure it was clear, he added more text to indicate Alan had not been with her.

  Radersent seemed to think this over for a few minutes. It was hard to tell, but it almost looked like the ends of his tendrils were swaying.

  [QUERY][PAST]ROBERTS SEARCH CHILD ROBERTS.

  How the hell had Radersent known to ask that, and why was he asking? Maybe war was a family event for crabs, and he thought Alan should have been there. He puzzled over the implications until another message flashed.

  MORE SEND.

  The crab really wanted to know. He couldn’t think of any reason not to tell him.

  YES.

  It wasn’t his imagination. The tendrils really were moving. Somehow that answer made the crab happy.

  “What was that all about?” Perwaty asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Ennis said slowly. “You said you’ve been stuck here three years, right? How long has he been here?” If the crab knew about the destruction of the carrier…‌

  “A year, maybe.”

  “Not more than a year? Are you sure?”

  Perwaty nodded. “I’d been to pretty much every ship I could reach in the cluster, looking for what I needed. His ship wasn’t there a year ago.”

  That was better. The news must have spread among the crabs, including Radersent, before his ship was wrecked.

  His comm bleeped.

  “How’s it going?” Moire asked. He smiled in relief, hearing her voice.

  “It’s been interesting. Radersent knew about the carrier you got.”

  It took her a moment to understand. “He what? Are you sure?”

  “Sure enough. I’m not sure how he thinks of you right now. I hope you’re planning some security features for his section,” Ennis said, his paranoia picking up speed. What if Radersent suddenly decided to avenge the destruction of the carrier?

  “You bet I am, especially after that bit of news. We need to talk about that. Gren’s almost finished here, so we will have some crew freed up. Why don’t you come back now, if you think he understands what we’re going to do. The sooner we get his quarters set up the sooner we can go back to his ship and start loading supplies.”

  ¤ ¤ ¤

  Wratursent pondered the words he was given

  Words simply spoken by the dark–‌headed human

  Now he knew fully the dangerous honor

  Granted to him by the small human queen.

  Driven by fear, his queen had sought danger

  Left by the Breakers when they fought the Hsurwyn

  Though the histories warned of their subtle deceptions

  Their creations remembered the undying hatred

  Through cycles of stars. Wratursent, obedient,

  Heeded his queen, waited and watched

  Ready to aid at the first sign of need.

  Soon was he called, he and his comrades

  Quickly they came and the same fate awaited

  The evil had found them and would not be stayed

  Fire and destruction, Wratursent alone

  Survived the great blow. Unthinking in terror,

  He returned to the great–‌ship,

  Left at a distance by caution’s advice

  Now empty and silent, how could he live?

  Surrounded by wreckage, ships of the enemy,

  No kin to give comfort or queen to obey

  Death would come without glory before it

  No ship–‌guide remaining, he could not go elsewhere.

  No queen would welcome an ill–‌
fated one

  Had he returned. Wratursent the Lone

  Waiting to die, vowed to warn strongly

  Any who ventured of the danger within.

  Out of the wreckage, small and quick–‌moving,

  Wratursent saw as he watched in the star–‌cold

  This stranger not Hsurwyn, and neither Life–‌Breaker

  A third traveling people with ways in the void.

  Joy to end loneliness, joy to now know

  The Breakers still slept and had not returned

  Fear of this enemy newly created

  Hsurwyn had made with unknowing action!

  Spurred by his solitude, Wratursent gave greeting

  Aiding the stranger when need had arrived

  Jheem was his name. His people then found him,

  Humans not fearing, the leader they followed

  A queen warlike and fearless, bringing him home.

  Rather than loneness Wratursent dared speak,

  Showing himself to the feared ship–‌breaker

  Known to the War Sisters, begged this queen entry

  Would he have dared, knowing her name?

  Not only ship–‌killer, but queen of the Scattered

  As in the old tales, the few still remembered

  Before the Destruction. Her sisterings ended,

  Her children all scattered, fighting alone at the end of the tale.

  But now is the story with glory continued

  The human queen honors the Hsurwyn vow.

  Her home new defended, her children recaptured,

  Glory and memory fully regained. How he is honored

  Wratursent the Lone, he who was nothing

  Will take part in glory, his name remembered

  With the human war queen.

  CHAPTER 14

  SALVAGE JOB

  As soon as Palmer dropped his ship back into realspace the barrage of signals was immediate. Lorai gaped at the communications console, trying to sort them out.

  “Anybody still there?” Palmer shouted from the pilot’s pit.

  “Dunno, but they sure left their distress beacons on,” Lorai said, her gaze snagging on the official station identifier code in the display. “Hold on, got the main office.”