by S MacDonald
‘Sorry, skipper…’ There was surprise all round when Alex informed them of that in the all-officers briefing held shortly after his meeting with Milli. ‘But didn’t you already tell them not to do that?’
The question came from Martine Fishe – third in command of the ship after Alex and Buzz. Calm and motherly in her professional role, she was also known for her mischievous sense of humour and, on occasion, blistering frankness. Alex would not readily forget the way she’d told the First Lord why she wouldn’t accept promotion to be Harry Alington’s executive officer. It was doubtful whether the First Lord would ever forget it, either. Right now though, her manner was one of mild perplexity.
‘I did,’ Alex confirmed. ‘Couriers are only of benefit when they can make use of their high speed, and that is not possible here since it is of course the terrain which imposes the speed of traverse and a courier can’t make that trip any faster than a freighter. I don’t see any advantage to a daily mail run, either, other than to increase the frequency of distractions we have to deal with.’ He held up his hands in a helpless gesture. ‘But this is the decision made by the civil authorities at Oreol; to establish a daily courier link directly between them and us.’
‘Lucky us,’ said a voice amongst the Sub-Lts standing around the table, and there were some grins and a chuckle or two. Alex, though, pretended not to hear it.
‘This is something we have to expect, of course,’ he said. ‘People out there, very naturally, want to know as much as possible about what’s going on. The relevant authorities will also, very naturally, be debating matters amongst themselves and sending us their opinions and advice.’ He overlooked those who couldn’t conceal their reaction to that, too, and smiled philosophically. ‘We can’t expect to be left to work in isolation.’
Like it or not, they certainly couldn’t. Within a few weeks a flotilla of high speed couriers had arrived and established a daily mail service. Soon, as news of the discovery began to spread beyond Telathor, reaction to it began surging back at them from other worlds. Every authority on every world appeared to feel it incumbent upon them to make some kind of response in terms of sending messages to the Fourth to be passed on by them to the Carrearranians. There was a great deal of advice, both official and unofficial, on how the contact mission should be conducted, too, with public opinion ranging predictably between ‘back off and leave them alone, any contact at all is imperialistic and harmful’ and ‘they need to be occupied now, by force if need be, for their own good.’ The words ‘We do not want another Mimos’ occurred with monotonous regularity. There was also a tiny but vocal minority fearful that this might be another Marfik, advocating taking in the biggest war-fleet possible and surrounding the system just in case they turned out to be hostile. As always in the polarised camps of League politics, left and right wingers made every possible use of the discovery in order to promote their own views of how things ought to be run. There were Senate debates, public demonstrations and impassioned calls for this or that action to be taken. There were also, inevitably, fury-spitting protests against the infamous Fourth having anything to do with the prestigious, sensitive role of heading up a first contact mission.
Alex remained untroubled by most of it, as his Diplomatic Corps team protected him from the daily bombardment of mail and news items, providing only a precis of essential points which he could read in a few minutes.
Even they, though, couldn’t protect him from the surge which arrived in response to the news reaching Chartsey. This included three messages from the League President himself – one an official public congratulations, one an official greeting to be transmitted on to Carrearranis, and a much longer private advisory which left Alex frankly baffled.
‘I don’t understand this at all,’ he confided to Buzz, after some time trying to make sense of President Tyborne’s advice. ‘Some of it just states the entirely obvious, like telling me that obtaining the Guardian’s defensive tech would be of tremendous value to the League, like that needs saying. And some of it is just so jargonistic that it’s meaningless. Like, what does, ‘endeavour to coordinate systemic multi-objective productives’ actually mean?’
‘I think,’ said Buzz, with an amused look, ‘that it means you’re expected to come up with outcomes which please everybody, or at least, the most important and powerful ‘everybodies’ involved; of which the Senate, of course, is at the top of the pile.’
Alex shook his head. Even satisfying the Senate as a body would be an impossible task, given that the Senate itself was riven with divisions on what they wanted here and how they thought best to achieve it. And short of direct orders from the President, nothing was going to change his own policy of cautious data gathering anyway.
‘Well,’ Alex said, looking for the positive, ‘at least they’ve ratified my position as mission commander.’
Buzz smiled. They had both been resigned to the possibility that a major Diplomatic Corps mission would be sent in to replace them, complete with a massive exo-embassy ship and very senior ambassador.
In the event, the Senate had decided to leave the first phase of contact in Alex’s hands, though sending out one of the carrier-sized Embassy ships to support him and the Fourth, and to take over from them, too, at the point where the mission had moved into an established diplomatic relationship. The Diplomatic Corps themselves had pointed out that since Alex had made contact and established a strong positive relationship with the Carrearranians it might have a negative or slowing-impact on the process to pull him out now and introduce a stranger. This was agreed by the Senate without much argument, as all sides could see advantage to it from their own point of view. The Corps, asked how long it would take them to equip one of their ships and assemble such a team, admitted that they had one ready ‘just in case’, and authorisation had therefore been given for them to embark on the journey to Carrearranis.
Before they could arrive, though, the mission would be plunged into disaster.
Seven
There was no premonition of impending disaster. On the contrary, the mission settled down to the long haul with a sense of purpose and a high degree of optimism. The skipper, it was felt, would figure something out, or something would turn up which would enable them to both get past the Guardian and access its technology.
In the meantime, there were changes to adjust to now that it was understood that they were likely to be here for many months, at least. For a start, Simon Penarth imposed a new health and safety policy.
‘The Heron’s crew has been shipboard for nearly six months already,’ he pointed out, in a meeting with Alex on the command deck. ‘It isn’t right, and you can’t expect them to go on for months more without shoreleave. We have to set up a rota for everyone to take their turn at going to Oreol.’
Alex stared at him.
‘I know what you’re going to say,’ Simon said, before Alex could even begin to say it. ‘You’ve got this massively complicated watch and quarter bill going on and it would be difficult logistically to have people swapping in from other ships. But all I have to say to that, Alex, is that it would be just as difficult to cope in a few weeks when you start getting all the illness and disruption caused by stress, quite apart from the humane responsibility you have for the welfare of your people. I know you do your best with ship visiting and people making use of the Stepeasy’s facilities when they’re out there, but face it, Alex, the reality is that they’re stuck aboard this ship going round and round in very small circles, which is not a natural or happy state for any spacer, is it? You guys like to be on the move, so even seeing the same star patterns day after day will be getting on everybody’s nerves by now. The only practicable solution is a rotation to Oreol, where they have excellent leisure facilities and can certainly provide secure quarters so your people aren’t hassled by tourists. And with other people coming aboard, too, there’ll be fresh faces and social stimulus for everyone here.’ He looked fixedly at the captain. ‘We’re not going to have any argument
about this, are we, Alex?’
Alex said something then which he felt quite guilty about later. At the time it felt as if he was focussed entirely on the needs of the mission. It was only later that he was honest enough to recognise that it had also sprung from a very selfish desire to escape the horror of being made to go to Oreol.
‘You’re not going to try to make me go, are you?’ he asked.
‘No,’ Simon grinned, well aware of Alex’s issues with shoreleave even at the best of times. ‘I know mission priorities mean you have to stay – though I will,’ he told him ominously, ‘be implementing a long term health programme for you too, which will include regular supervised gym sessions and rest time on the escort ship. But everyone else…’ he flicked a glance at Buzz Burroughs, making it clear that there would be no other exceptions, ‘will have to go to Oreol for a couple of weeks R&R. Here,’ he added helpfully, passing the skipper a file, ‘I’ve put a provisional schedule together for you.’
There was huge upset over the shoreleave orders. Nobody wanted to go. For a start, nobody wanted to leave the mission in case something happened while they were away. And then there was the horrible prospect of spending two weeks at Oreol. It was bad enough going on shoreleave to places like ISiS stations where they risked being harassed by members of the public. Those passes, though, were rarely for more than a few hours, and for those who couldn’t face the company of tourists there was always the option of the cargo decks with the club facilities for spacers. At Oreol, they would be effectively in the same hotel as all the liner passengers who were paying small fortunes for the privilege of going there. Some of them would have very strong feelings about the Fourth being allowed to take on this first contact role. Others, likely to be even more importunate, would be so excited by it all that they’d be mobbing any member of the mission, desperate for first-hand accounts from the front line. Either way, it would be no kind of fun.
Simon was right, though. Once the first batch of reluctant shoreleavers had been pushed onto shuttles and taken away, most of the rest accepted philosophically enough that they would have to take their turn when it came. And it was refreshing to have other people coming aboard, both socially and because of the adjustments to the watch and quarter bill that required, giving everyone a change of routine.
There was no arrival more refreshing, though, than that of Able Star ‘Jen’ Jennet.
On the face of it, she seemed unlikely to make any kind of impact on the frigate. That, indeed, was the problem with Jen Jennet which had brought her to the Fourth in the first place. She never made any kind of impact, professionally or personally. She was not, strictly speaking, a bullock, since the Fleet defined that as someone who was both underperforming and troublesome. Jen Jennet had never broken a regulation in her life and there had never been any complaint either about the quality of her work or her conduct.
There was no doubt, though, that she was underperforming. Given her intelligence, education and training she should have been a leading star a good couple of years by then and be working towards a petty officer’s qualification. The fact that she was still rated able was because she lacked, in official parlance, the confidence and interpersonal skills required to take on a leading role with colleagues.
She was, in fact, a geek. It was almost as if nature had intended her to be a geek at the genetic level. She was thin, awkward, with a little pinched face and bat-wing ears. She had limp mousy hair in an unbecoming mop cut which needed much thicker hair to be successful, sallow skin with a sheen of grease on her forehead, small worried eyes and a perpetually nervous expression.
The Fleet had done their best. They had sent her on various forms of assertiveness training several times, as well as providing both informal and medical counselling for her self-esteem and confidence issues. Finding that this just made her even more anxious, however, a far-sighted officer had suggested a secondment to the Fourth.
Jen had cried after this was first suggested to her, as it seemed to sound the death-knell for her career in the Fleet. Gradually, though, she had come around to the idea, hoping that they might be able to help her get over what she always referred to as her ‘shyness’. She had signed the paperwork without much expectation of getting anywhere – after all, there were hundreds of applications for every place available in the Fourth, and she was nobody, why would they pick her?
But pick her they had, and after several months of training and travelling, she had arrived at Oreol and been given a lift out on the Minnow.
Even the week she’d spent on the Minnow had been good for Jen. They’d been kind to her there, friendly, giving her lots of information and not expecting much from her in the way of conversation. They had also reassured her, several times, that she would love it on the Heron, which was, as one of them had observed, pretty much a university in space and would be right up her alley.
Even so, she was terrified when the shuttle brought her over, along with a handful of Minnow crew who’d be covering Heron personnel on leave. She was always sick with apprehension when arriving at a new posting anyway – actually sick, as she’d vomited that morning and was blasting a combination of gargles, breath-freshener sprays and a hastily crunched mint just in case the reek of the sick was still on her breath. Her stomach was churning again as she stepped through the airlock, put her kitbag at her feet and saluted the officer waiting to receive her.
That, however, was as far as official procedure was allowed to go.
Silvie arrived. She appeared from the command deck, an amazed look already on her face. She was wearing shipboard rig and very little makeup, her hair casually brushed and half a biscuit in her hand.
Her attention was focussed entirely on Jen, paying no heed at all to the other arrivals or to Buzz, who’d gone to the airlock to welcome them.
‘Jeeks!’ she exclaimed, her amazement turning to a look of pained reproach. Jen was staring at her in turn with paralysed shock tinged with wonder. Silvie was so beautiful, with her elven features and platinum hair. More than that, she was radiant with a vivacity someone like Jen could only look at with envy. ‘No, no!’ Silvie protested, as if Jen was making some kind of intolerable noise, like scraping a violin with a blunted saw. She handed her half-eaten biscuit to Buzz without even looking at him, going straight to Jen and taking one of her hands in both of hers. ‘Please,’ she begged, earnest and imploring. ‘Let me…’
She said no more, and it was evident that she didn’t need to. Touch intensified her empathic ability significantly; as it was apparent she’d intended to do with that firm two-handed grasp. Jen was looking more than stunned, now. She seemed half-mesmerised, dizzy, oblivious to everything but Silvie’s gaze. She said nothing, but there was a clear emotional response – much more than acceptance, it was as if she surrendered herself to Silvie entirely and with a kind of breathless wonder. It was as if she melted into worshipful compliance, I will do anything you want.
Silvie gave a small, satisfied noise and pulled her away at once, retaining that grip on her hand and leading her away from the airlock at a brisk pace. Jen went along with her, dazed, not even glancing at Buzz and forgetting her kitbag, too, abandoning it at the airlock in the first breach of regulations she had ever committed.
She had no notion where Silvie was taking her, and no awareness of her surroundings, either. She was only conscious of a sense of blissful trust in the quarian. Soon, she found herself guided into a chair, with Silvie bustling around her.
She was, Jen recognised dimly, in a salon. All Fleet ships, however small, had some kind of auto-salon facility for crew to keep their hair in order. The Heron, notoriously, had gone far beyond anything the Fleet considered appropriate for shipboard provision. Their interdeck had a compact but luxurious salon capable of providing a broad range of spa treatments as well as high end cosmetic services.
And for the next quarter of an hour, Jen was treated to quite a few of them. There were intensive skin treatments, manicure and pedicure and a spinal massag
e all going on simultaneously. Mostly, though, Silvie was focussed on the hairdressing function. She spent several minutes adjusting the styling feature, showing Jen different ideas for what might be done with her hair. She never asked her for an opinion but responded very quickly to her emotional response, homing in on the look that Jen had always secretly longed for but never dared to try.
There was a moment, just a fraction of a second of panic at the point where Silvie engaged the helmet and Jen realised that she was actually going to have her hair done like that.
I can’t… her feelings said, way before she could have voiced the fear aloud.
Yes you can, Silvie’s certainty was like a line thrown to her in the whirl of sudden panic, calming her at once.
‘Jeeks,’ said Silvie aloud, repeating the expression she’d picked up recently from an aquatics expert brought out on the Stepeasy to check up on the Heron’s aquarium. ‘How did you get like this?’ she wondered, and then displayed her increasing understanding of human society with a venture, ‘Parents? School?’
Jen thought briefly about her parents, and her sister. Her sister was the pretty one. Her parents had always said that she was clever and that Alis was the pretty one. And so she was; pretty, stylish, popular. Jen, she felt, had been stuck with being clever. Given the choice, she’d have opted for pretty any day of the week. Being clever at school only got you higher expectations from teachers and resentment from other kids. By the time she was in high school she had faced the inevitability of her geek-hood, with all the humiliation that entailed. Small, futile attempts to break out of it with pretty outfits, hairdressing and make up for events at school had only resulted in deeper shame than ever as the popular girls had poured scorn on her efforts. She had had to accept what she was, and given up all hope of ever being anything other than awkward, unattractive and shy.