by Scott Rhine
“The new skin is flawless, but she left the unit early. She might never have hair there again. She also neglected her physical therapy.”
“Is that what took you two so long? Toning exercises?”
Max inhaled a little cake at the unexpected comment and coughed to clear the air passage. “I missed your cooking. This is all great. Their food choices are pretty limited.”
“I was in no way trying to influence your vote,” said Alyssa.
Roz blushed at the implication.
Max said, “I’m fine with the destination you picked, but we need to adjust for some extra mass—another passenger.”
Roz glanced around the table. “Who? There’s nobody new. In fact, Reuben’s missing.”
“Reuben and I escorted the prisoner directly to stasis,” said Deke.
“Prisoner?” asked Herb.
“It’s a long story,” Max began. “I may have someone who can help with our loan sharks. When I asked who wanted to be rescued from the colony, only one person did. Get this, he was in jail.”
“On a prison world?” Roz said. “How bad is this guy?”
“Just a young malcontent. The Bats claim he can get the Blue Claw Clan off our back, but we shouldn’t let him see Kesh yet. Contact with a Saurian might set him off prematurely.”
Roz asked, “Did the prince deputize you to transport this desperado?”
“Better. Feeveerkahn made the guy a special ambassador and gave our triad royal commendations for service. He also gave me some secret mail to distribute.
Deke said, “I wouldn’t let this fellow out of leg irons when he rode up here, but then again, I’m very protective of my blade.”
Rolling her eyes, Roz said, “I’ve apologized a hundred times for that.”
“Three hundred years without an incident, and in one day, you totaled it,” Deke replied, ribbing her some more.
She hugged him anyway. “Peace. I think I’ve made up for the scratch. Have a big family and a long life.”
Deke’s voice broke as he said, “My thanks to you for all of the above. The prince hired me at your word. You really impressed him.”
“He’s never met an adversary before?”
“You’re a woman who took out an assassin with a laser turret. They said you did it by plugging the barrel with your pistol?”
“What can I say? On this ship, we call that Tuesday,” Roz said.
Deke bowed. “I learned from all of you on this vessel, but from you I learned the power of kindness toward strangers. If I am half the giver you are, they will name me a saint.” He handed her a cloth-bound book. “It is poor repayment, but this is a collection of Bat children’s stories. My mother read these to me. I offer them as a blessing to your children, both Jeeves and those yet to come.”
“I have a small gift for you, too.” She handed him a holo cube.
He fiddled with it for a moment. “This is cracked and won’t play.”
“It’s the surveillance recording of you and a certain female in the fur storage area.”
The others looked puzzled, but Deke roared with laughter. “I will miss you, Shiraz Ellison.”
****
Once the shuttle departed, the Human crew continued to celebrate the success of their missions until the last moment. However, a thought lingered in the back of Roz’s mind—that she might never see her parents again if the jump failed.
Reuben never showed up to the party, so Max went looking for him. Roz tagged along because she didn’t want to be separated from her husband again so soon. They found the Goat sitting beside the stasis unit with a drink bulb. He stared at Ivy’s motionless face and took another swig. “Roz, thanks for saving her.”
“It was a team effort. Max stabilized her, and the bridge crew scooped us up in orbit. You secured her in stasis in record time.”
Reuben looked downward. “Our last night together, I said some pretty vile things to her.”
“I doubt that was a one-sided argument.” Roz put an arm around him. “She picks fights when people get too close to her. It’s a defense mechanism.”
“The last time I’ll ever get to speak to her.” Reuben took another swallow of something vile smelling. This wasn’t quality bourbon. This clear liquid came from Max’s potato-peel still. She only used that stuff to clean axle grease off her hands.
“Nonsense,” Max replied. “She’ll be good as new. Laurelin has medical science we’ve never heard of.”
“Once she gets out of the hospital, they’ll retire her to the breeding pool.”
Roz snatched the bulb of moonshine out of his hand. “She has to serve seven years active duty before she can retire. Besides, we’re all so important now that they have to send her to keep an eye on us.”
“Ivy and I argued because MI-23 ordered me back to headquarters, and I refused. When I chose Ivy over Mnamnabo, her boss recalled her. I just wish I could talk to her for one more hour.”
Max shook his head. “Sorry. She’s in too much pain to be lucid. If I increased the drugs, her blood pressure would be too low.”
“Not even a couple minutes?” Reuben begged.
“If we could manage that,” Roz said, “we’d have Ivy send the drive equations to the academy of sages on the Magi home world.” She couldn’t transmit this information by the planet’s ansible because the Bankers would keep the information for themselves and kill off anyone who got close to the invention again.
Max whispered, “Frankly, I’m shocked she made it to the ship alive.”
“Nobody disobeys la Generala,” Reuben joked.
“I’m asking you to socialize with the rest of us,” Roz said. “In a couple hours, we’re about to risk our lives on my latest bailing-wire implementation.”
Reuben reclaimed his drinking bulb. “I’d rather finish my conversation with Ivy.”
Roz checked the time. “I’ll complete your checklist and put Jeeves away. Then we’re dragging your butt to the party.”
“I thought you froze the little guy already,” Max said.
“I didn’t have the heart. He’s terrified of the food stasis units. Last time someone put him in one, he lost his family and Saurians tried to eat him. He actually ran away from me.”
“Maybe if I put Kesh into cold sleep first, Jeeves will feel less threatened.”
Reuben said, “I worked with the mimics for months. If I put him in storage, can I skip the party?”
“Sure.” Max clapped him on the back. “But you need to secure yourself by jump time. Echo said no one can be awake outside the mirrored sphere.”
“I don’t get jump sickness like Roz did, and I’m sedated,” Reuben said.
“This is an order of magnitude faster,” Roz replied. This wouldn’t be like swimming in a pool. It would be a cliff dive into the ocean.
The three split up to handle last-minute preparations for the new, improved subbasement trial. Once Roz double-checked everything about the drive system, she triple-checked it. If we don’t make this, an entire civilization will never achieve its goal.
She didn’t have time for grief. She only spoke to Reuben briefly after he suspended Alyssa and Herb. “You took care of Jeeves?”
“He’s next on my list,” Reuben snapped.
Roz was distracted by literally putting out a fire. When she powered up one of the new control systems, one of the nearby warning signs heated up sufficiently to burst into flames. She was pushing buttons faster than she thought possible.
Ten minutes later, Roz checked on Reuben. His badge was stationary and unresponsive in the stasis room. She confirmed by asking Echo, “Any signs of aura activity on the cargo level?”
“Negative. All systems go.”
Chapter 40 – Subbasement
Roz stood at the master console and asked Max for confirmation on one of the settings.
He replied, “I don’t understand a tenth of this. I’ll record everything, and you two will get the kudos for the achievement.”
“You work t
he secondary systems for us,” Roz said. “Turn off power to all non-essential systems. Reduce heat and gravity to a minimum.”
“Turning off the lights before we leave the solar system,” Max said.
Roz hesitated with her finger over the button for a long time. “Charging quantum capacitors.” No turning back now. As the charge built, she could feel her special senses creep in around the edges. Phantom spots shimmered at the corners of her vision. “Get me an EEG strip. We need to monitor my brain activity during the dive.”
Max dashed off to grab the gadget from his bag. Movement spun off in several directions and caused tracers.
She covered her mouth. “And Dramamine.”
Over the intercom, she heard a plaintive wail. “Chilly. Mommy. Chilly.”
“Jeeves!” Roz said in horror. Born in a tropical climate, the mimic hated the cold. “I trusted my baby to a drunken Goat? What sort of mother am I?” She unstrapped, but Echo put a hand on her arm.
“You can’t leave the bubble of our reality. We take it with us into the deep for a reason. Outside of it, our standing waveforms would not survive without the reinforcement of stasis.”
Roz broke free. “I still have time.”
“I locked the lift down already.” Max turned on cameras and minibots. “If Reuben didn’t catch him, there’s a reason. Give me a minute.”
The Goat appeared on the screen in front of Ivy’s stasis bay, surrounded by a puddle of vomit. He wore Ivy’s psi-blocking helmet, which explained his temporary lack of aura.
“Is he trying to kill himself?” Roz asked angrily. “Too bad the fire suppressants aren’t water, or we could wake him up.”
Max flipped a couple switches. “If I remember right, the sonics I installed for the Bats gave Reuben a serious headache.” A sound wave appeared at the corner of Max’s console, and he turned the volume to the maximum.
On camera, Reuben sat up, holding his ears.
Disabling the sonic defense, Max spoke into the intercom. “Reuben and Jeeves, come to the central elevator shaft immediately.”
Roz rebroadcast with her Bat translator so Jeeves would understand. By then she had placed the elevator in maintenance mode, which sent the elevator car to the top and opened the doors on all levels. She had discovered this mode earlier when she needed to weld inside the tube. In the low gravity, she climbed the emergency ladder to the top of the dome to peek onto the cargo level.
“Are you insane?” asked Max from below.
“If the world gets too wild, I can drop to safety,” Roz insisted. “I can also drag others with me.” She balanced at the edge of the protected zone, waiting.
Echo said, “We have the security feed, but tell us what you see.”
Roz blinked to focus better. “The new walls are flickering a little.”
“The results of recent choices,” Echo said.
“Open the airlock to the jungle and turn on the lights.”
When Echo did so, Roz saw phantom bushes and trees at various stages of growth.
Reuben staggered into the security chamber as if a dozen films were playing simultaneously, each just a little different in distance and timing. On the whole, though, she could pretend that the darkest overlap was reality. Speech was just as confusing, with minor variations like a congregation reciting their creed. If she filtered out the outliers, she could make sense of the crowd. “The little guy didn’t make it?”
“The plants are shifting. He might be lost or afraid.” She saw the young Goat the way Ivy once described, with his forked probability tree. On one half, he was a statesman and the other a street bum. This moment was somehow pivotal, the crucial choice. She hated him for being responsible for Jeeves’s plight. If she saved Jeeves or died in the attempt, Reuben would never be able to respect himself again. But if he saved Jeeves, he could make up for his drunken behavior. Steeling herself, she chose. “Please rescue him.”
Reuben’s cloud didn’t hesitate. He dove into the flickering jungle.
Over the intercom, Roz said, “Alls in free, Jeeves. If you can’t get to the inner door, find Reuben. Follow my song.” As loud as she could in the hall, she sang his favorite nursery rhyme.
Reuben joined in the chorus, his slurred words making it sound like a rebellious rock song. Soon, he said, “I see several mimics. Which one do I catch?”
“All of them,” Roz said. “As many as you can.”
He sang and gathered until the jungle flickered like green flames. Too many changes too fast.
“We’re in too deep. Run back now!” Roz shouted.
When she saw the Goat, his dust cloud was blurred but stable. In fact, the copies of Jeeves in his arms grew more solid the longer he held them. Was this part of his psi talent? Did he put people in touch with their alternates so the entire quantum cloud could be explored for an answer?
Wisps of black smoke trailed from his heels as he ran. The biozone and everything changeable began to evaporate, leaving only the constant walls. Light sequences unified into a gray blur. “Can’t see the door,” Reuben said, his voices more unified.
Holding out her arms, she willed him to succeed. Her fingertips flared bright yellow. As she looked out at the growing expanse, she realized that the answers to the Enigma were out there. In the undergirding of the universe, she wouldn’t need to build millennia of math or centuries of starships. She could see the answer firsthand. The only thing that kept her anchored was the fact that Max waited for her. “Come to the center where it’s solid.” When Reuben was close enough, she grabbed him by the legs and pulled both down the rabbit hole.
Once their group hit bottom, Max dragged them inside and closed the mirrored door behind.
Reuben panted. His slotted, golden eyes were bloodshot from panic and alcohol. The bright light in the inner sphere made him squint.
“You did great,” she encouraged, lifting Jeeves out of his arms.
Reuben gasped out, “Doma Isolchar stopped me in the hall. I saw him.”
“The ancient Phib governor you questioned?” Max said. “He blames you for his death?”
“He wanted to talk about poetry in Earth music!” The Goat seemed more disturbed by the lack of antagonism.
“What you saw was a faint probability resonance,” Echo said.
Roz wrinkled her forehead. “People who died here leave imprints?”
“Past and future grow closer the deeper we plunge.”
“Right. Were the mimics in the jungle alternates of Jeeves or ghosts of the murdered mimics?”
“Perhaps any of the proper—” Echo cut off with a choked cry.
The pressure escalated in Roz’s head as if several Magi were trying to force their way in. Her old partners? Were they trying to pull her to them? “Everyone join hands.” It was all about the connections. Trust. Love.
The five of them linked hands to weather the hurricane. Her first journey through the subbasement was supposed to last three days, taking them the same distance as a month-long star jump. To those at the center, their time in the deep passed between one breath and the next.
****
When the ship emerged into normal space, Roz blinked. The navigator room was eerily silent. “Did something malfunction?” Crap, we don’t have enough fuel to do this again.
Reuben appeared to have passed out, either from intoxication or the stress of the deep jump.
Echo whispered, “Minder, current position?”
“Salizar B system.”
As Roz stumbled over to the controls, Jeeves’s bulk around her neck felt heavier than before. “We made it. We used more fuel than expected. Good thing we had extra.” She grinned and addressed the room. “We did it!”
She spun in a circle, hopping, and kissed Jeeves on the forehead. “We’re going to be famous, honey.”
Jeeves frowned, furrowing his wrinkles deeper. Her earbud translated the words he spoke in the Bat language. “Who will sing for my friends and siblings in the Hidden Forest?”
Roz wa
s shocked by the mimic’s suddenly articulate speech. “Do you mean the place you came from before the Saurians captured you?”
“Yes. Your song led me to a safe place. Who will sing for them so they can be warm and full and happy?”
The mimic’s home world was full of creatures who would be exploited, hunted, and eaten until someone stood up for them. She turned to Max. “When’s the next Convocation of Souls?” The interspecies gathering was similar to a meeting of the Anodyne Senate, where they debated new laws and other important matters affecting the Union.
“Um … Some time later this year.”
“Who is hosting?”
“Why?”
“Because Jeeves is going to petition to be heard by the committee on sentient affairs. He’s going to ask for protection on behalf of his people. He’ll sing for the living and the dead.” Powerful people would resist, but Roz would make it happen.
“Sing, sing!” Jeeves said excitedly. “Do I need to rhyme?”
“No, honey. Just tell the truth to some important people, but we’ll be right behind you.”
###
This story will continue in Gigaparsec book three, “Union of Souls.”
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