Ghost Ship

by Sharon Lee

  He sighed, picked up his glass and drained the wine remaining before meeting Daav yos’Phelium’s shrewd, eyes.

  “I will come with you,” he said.

  - - - - -

  “The captain will have me shot,” Nelirikk said, stubbornly.

  He’d said that once already today, but Val Con had dismissed it out of hand and continued preparations. Now, it needed to be addressed more forcefully since it was actually delaying lift-off.

  “Indeed, she will not have you shot. Because, as we have discussed, you will begin calling for aid along Korval’s private channels the moment you clear Vandar orbit, and you will not stop calling until you have raised either the captain herself, the elder scout, or Commander ter’Meulen. Once you have done this, you will report that the situation is far more complex than we had believed. That, in addition to no less than six field teams and four technical teams, there is at least one Agent of Change stationed in Laxaco City, whose intention is to speedily bring Vandar’s technology to the point required by the new commander of the Department.

  “You will report on your prisoners and their condition, and you will say that I have gone to Laxaco on purpose to ensure that Kem and Hakan are out of harm’s way. I will attempt to locate the agent, but I do not intend to confront such a one until I have substantial backup.”

  “Scout—”

  Val Con sliced the air with his hand, a signal for attention; Nelirikk subsided, though he dared to frown.

  “If the captain has you shot, you have my permission to bludgeon me to death.”

  Nelirikk snorted. “A soldier’s gamble, indeed.” He sighed. “I will send backup soon, Scout. Try not to do anything the captain would deplore in the meantime.”

  “It is my sole desire to behave only as the captain would wish.”

  Nelirikk looked dubious, but he did at last turn toward the board.

  “Safe lift, Scout.”

  “Fair journey, Nelirikk.”

  FORTY-TWO

  Pod 78

  Moonstruck

  “Pilot, I regret.” Uncle’s voice did sound regretful over the tight beam, mannerly deceiver that he was. “The attempted remote boot has failed multiple times. Nor have I been able to force the timer into inactivity. I note that certain systems are quickening, in response to the approaching deadline.” There was a pause. “I fear,” Uncle said, “that you will need to do this, personally.”

  Webbed into the copilot’s chair on Ride the Luck, Daav nodded. It scarcely mattered whether Uncle had made the attempts he claimed. Daav rather thought he had done so, given his very genuine horror upon learning that Daav intended, not a reboot, but a full shutdown.

  Pod 78 was simply too odd, its location too populated, to be allowed to continue on as it had done. It should have been disarmed many years ago—and perhaps would have been, by some saner successor delm—had Korval managed to recall its existence.

  But, there, Theonna’s madness had prompted her to obfuscate and conceal, even in the pages of the Diaries, lest some enemy discover her methods, and thereby destroy the clan.

  Daav touched the comm switch. “I thank you for your efforts,” he said. “One had, after all, expected that it would come to a tour of the cavern.”

  “As you say. We will maintain surveillance from orbit until you are returned to your ship.”

  His backup, Daav thought wryly, would perhaps not meet with his delmae’s unqualified approval, should word of it ever reach her. Still, it was hardly reasonable to ask Uncle to risk his ancient, precious person to stand at Daav’s back with a handgun. Scans of the area had shown hints of perhaps more than one recent visitation. Which could as easily be adventurers from the orbiting space camp as anyone harboring ill-will toward Korval or its holdings.

  And there was no natural law, was there, that did not allow of it being both?

  The Luck’s scans detected no irregularity in the doors or the various locks and protocols guarding them. The more robust scan performed by Uncle had likewise revealed no evidence of tampering.

  Which was disturbing of itself.

  Pod 78 had reported itself under direct attack. Someone must have recently opened that door.

  And closed it again, very carefully, behind them.

  “I wonder,” Daav murmured, “if there is . . . another door.”

  Silence was his answer, too long a silence for mere lag . . .

  “There is,” the Uncle admitted, reluctantly, “another door. Transmitting.”

  - - - - -

  Ride the Luck settled neatly on the rocky apron hard by the back door Theonna had insisted upon. As modeled, the world’s constant rotation meant the storms of fall had drifted the water and other snows into a predictably strange drift-sand, and the overhang of the scarp which hid the place from easy satellite oversight kept it accessible even now, approaching the fullness of winter.

  It was scarcely more than a service hatch, and the figure in the light-duty suit made quick work of getting it open and slipping inside.

  Uncle rode the scans hard, discomfited, as if in anticipation of some grand or terrible event. Yet the scans—powerful and nuanced—reported nothing out of the way.

  So focused was he on the close scans that he did not at first see the ship nose out of the shelter of one of the space camp’s supply dumps. Certainly, he did not divine its purpose until it had loosed a bolt—

  Directly into the heart of Ride the Luck.

  “Dulsey!” he snapped over the tight band.

  “On it,” came the laconic reply from Arin’s Toss.

  The ship was a cyclops—a siege ship usually—fitted with one weapon, an outsize combined beam device, something used against the heart of planets and not single vessels. This was not just a bolt loosed, it was a stream inundating the surface of the worldlet, centered on the spot that was Ride The Luck.

  The initial images on the IR scan showed an immense heat shared between the ship and the rocks it nestled among, the visual scans showed jets of gas emanating from the fire zone and dust lifting as charges built and shared themselves. Korval’s ship sang, complained, and acted—a missile was launched in retaliation—and failed instantly, dissolving into spindles of smoke.

  Automatics threw everything that was left into the shields; that was his guess, for a brief bubble appeared as if the beam was deflected; the vessel’s image trembled even more as the rock it sat on glowed and melted, and it mattered not at all which screen he looked at; every one showed too much energy for a hull to withstand. The dying ship vented, as something in it boiled explosively into space and against the stony surface.

  Uncle looked to his screens, at the ruined pieces of ship among the blasted rockscape, glowing brightly in the infrared, amid molten rocks dropping from golden to red to brown visually as they radiated.

  He triggered more scans, not really surprised to find that they returned no signs of life on the surface.

  - - - - -

  The alternate route to the control cavern was hardly more than a service tunnel, illuminated by emergency dims. Daav moved briskly, mindful of the limitations of the light-duty suit, splashing through the occasional puddle, twice ducking to avoid encroaching stalactites, arriving at last at the end of the tunnel, sealed by a manual pressure hatch.

  Daav addressed the limestone-coated wheel. It resisted at first, then all at once the stony skin broke and the mechanism meshed.

  Three full turns of the wheel later, he was inside a tiny airlock, sealing the hatch behind him. The pressure gauge set into the wall directly in front of his nose went from yellow to green, the inner door slid open and he stepped into the main cavern.

  The rock was raw, unimproved, nothing done to protect the machinery from the damp, chilly air, or the slow crawl of limestone.

  Except, Daav saw, as he stepped to the control bank, there were no drips marring the brightwork, no dust coating the dials. The uneven floor seemed strangely dry, and near the center of a room a stalagmite had been snapped off short
, the new terminus jagged; the bit snapped off nowhere to be seen.

  Daav took a deep breath, tasting canned air, and reached up to unseal his hood. Pod 78 had said it was under attack. Whatever the attackers had done, for whatever reason they had withdrawn, his task was clear.

  The cavern’s air was dusty. He unsealed suit’s pocket and pulled out the remote, triggering the system maps provided by Uncle.

  Best to do what he had come to do, and go away again.

  Quickly.

  - - - - -

  Dulsey was in pursuit of the cyclops; the scans reported nothing amiss.

  And continued to report nothing amiss when a small craft, scarcely larger than a lifeboat, rose over the asteroid’s horizon, on course for the main entrance to the cavern.

  Uncle’s fingers twitched toward the weapons array. Mindful of the gunship, as yet at large, and the fact that it, as well as this small craft, had been shielded from his scans. His vessel likewise wore a cloak, but it would be foolhardy to draw the attention of those who must intend him no good.

  He did, after a moment, open a line to the remote comm carried by Daav yos’Phelium.

  “Be quick, Pilot,” he said. “There are three coming in the main entrance.”

  - - - - -

  “Three,” Daav said, glaring at the remote—only three? asked Aelliana. “Might you take a more active interest?”

  “I dare not risk firing upon them so close to the door,” Uncle answered. “Strike or miss, there will be damage to the cavern, and perhaps to yourself.”

  “There’s a touching concern,” he snapped, and looked to the control board on which he had been working. A light had gone from red—sealed—to green—open.

  Cursing, he flung himself across the room, slapped up the seal on the main door, and palmed the lock to closed.

  Back at the board, he saw his fingers moving, lines of code appearing on the screen. Aelliana had taken over entering the sequences they had both memorized, leaving him to scan the readouts from the hallway, and hope that the locked door held them long enough to—

  The board pinged and flashed orange. He looked to the screen, saw that their proposition had gotten them to the point.

  To the very point.

  Blood sample required, the bright orange letters spelled out. Please insert hand in pocket to right.

  Daav glanced to the right, saw the pocket, limned appropriately enough in red, moved his hand—

  The hatch to the main hallway blew in.

  - - - - -

  “The target has been disposed of,” Dulsey reported. “They may have gotten a message out.”

  “We will be gone, presently,” Uncle said.

  “How fares the pilot?”

  “I fear, not well. Let us tarry yet awhile.”

  - - - - -

  The blast damaged one of their own; she staggered into the path of her mates, making a comedy of their entrance, allowing Daav to slit the throat of a second before the third turned on him with a vicious slash and parry, the growl of the vibroblade angry against the stone walls. At least none of them was fool enough to use a gun in this place.

  Daav sidestepped, tripped on the broken stalagmite, twisted, and went down, the jagged stump piercing suit, leather and leg.

  He screamed, or his assailant did, as she fell on him, blade snarling, biting through his arm instead of his throat. He lost his knife, grabbed her arm and forced it up—up and back—but she had leverage; she had strength. His grip slipped, she leaned in and he kicked with his good leg, sweeping her sideways—not a killing blow, but enough . . . enough to distract her and allow him to shove the blade home.

  * * *

  There was, after all, more than enough blood left for the proof, after he had dragged himself across the rough icy floor, to the board. After that, there was only, only—Aelliana took care of it, he was certain, the last thing—two things—in the sequence, so that . . .

  “Daav?”

  He lay across her lap, his head pillowed on her shoulder. He was tired—no, he was far worse than tired.

  “Aelliana,” he said, or thought he said, “I fear that I—am about to fail you.”

  Her arms tightened fiercely. “You have never failed me, van’chela, and you do not fail me now.”

  He laughed, thought that it should have hurt—and opened his eyes.

  Her eyes were awash with tears, her face wet, but he smiled to see her again, at last.

  Smiling, he slid away.

  FORTY-THREE

  Jelaza Kazone

  Surebleak

  He paused outside the door to the suite he shared with his lifemate, took a breath, and put his palm firmly against the plate.

  The door slid aside; he stepped into their private parlor—and stopped.

  Across the room, the curtains had been drawn back from the wide window, admitting Surebleak’s uncertain dawn. The rocking chair placed at an angle to the window moved quietly, back and forth, back and forth, its occupant silhouetted against the light.

  “Took your time,” Miri said.

  He smiled and moved across the room, dropping to his knees by her chair and putting his head in her lap.

  “I am glad to be home, too, cha’trez.”

  She laughed, her hand falling onto the back of his neck, fingers massaging gently.

  “Emerging world, huh? Pretty slick way of doing things, Scout Commander.”

  “It was the only possible solution,” Val Con murmured. “Hakan and Kem will do well, I think, as planetary liaisons.”

  “I think so, too.”

  “Also, we are to take our child to make her bow to Zhena Trelu, when she is old enough to travel safely.”

  “Be glad of the vacation,” she said. “You don’t mind my saying so, you could use some sleep. No need to rush back so fast.”

  “I did not wish to miss the birth of our daughter,” he said, drowsy under her fingers.

  “Not a worry. Priscilla says day after tomorrow.”

  “So soon?”

  She laughed, and pushed him off her lap. He made a show of sprawling on the rug, and she laughed again, pushing against the arms of the chair.

  Val Con leapt to his feet and helped her rise.

  “I believe I will have a nap,” he said. “Will you join me?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

  - - - - -

  Father’s house on Leafydale Place had a cellar. In the cellar, buried snugly beneath the house where neither light nor neighbors might peer, were storage closets full of things that nobody was using at the moment, but might again, someday; and things that were only useful once or twice a year. Father’s collection of lures and fishing poles had their own closet. Another closet was full of rugs.

  Cellars, she’d learned from her classmates, were atavism or worse, harking back to the time before the safe life in the Wall, assuming a need for more—and worse, different!—things than one’s level mates might have access to.

  Cellars, she’d learned at home, were comforting collections of scents and textures, a place where just the right thing might be waiting to be unleashed yet again.

  Father had confided once to growing up in a house with a cellar, one of the rarest fleeting references he’d ever made to living some other life, and he’d said he’d liked the feeling that he could touch the coming season by going to the cellar to get the gardening supplies, to find and restore the sleeping tubers—

  Bechimo didn’t have a cellar, of course. But if he had, the Remastering Unit would’ve been in it.

  Of the questions she’d asked Win Ton, of the demands she’d made, of the delights shared, none had dealt with the question of the house itself. His discussions being full of clan rather than house, most often of the demands of clan, he’d not talked about a favorite room, a favorite spot, a cellar.

  She used the manual pull at the end of the long passage that led to the heart of the ship, the exercise of dealing with the massive blast door on her own, allowing her to byp
ass Bechimo’s tendency to overlight everything. True or not, the place felt cooler, like a proper cellar should.

  Theo stepped into the dim space, walking quiet, like she thought she might wake him up.

  She checked the status lights—all green; that was good, right?—and didn’t trigger the internal view screen. It would be an invasion of privacy, to look at him when he didn’t know.

  And besides, she thought, the status lights said that everything was going well.

  “Pilot Waitley,” Bechimo said quietly, from somewhere to the right and rear of her. “Is there a . . . difficulty?”

  A difficulty.

  Theo raised her hand and stroked her fingertips across the status lights.

  “No, Bechimo,” she said, stroking the lights again. “Everything’s going well.”

  - - - - -

  Warm leaves surrounded and cherished her, and the whole world smelled like mint. It was a puzzling place Miri found herself in, but comforting for all of that. Maybe she slept, a little. Must have, actually, because she woke up, impatient with the fuzzy, indeterminate landscape, and wondering where Val Con was.

  “Here,” she heard him say, and all at once the leaves melted, reshaping into pillows, a blanket, a bed.

  She opened her eyes to his face, brilliant with wonder, damp with tears. He was cradling something in his arms.

  Carefully, he bent and showed her—an impossibly tiny, scrunched face beneath a shock of fuzzy red hair.

  “Cha’trez,” Val Con said, and his voice was shaky with pride and love. “Behold our daughter.”

  EPILOGUE

  Pod 78

  Moonstruck

  Dulsey had proposed to go down to the asteroid’s surface and reconnoiter. It would have been wise.

  Uncle was not, at the moment, feeling particularly wise. He’d already allowed connection to the place to fog his thought and action, and having owned that much recognition of investment in something that ought to have been mere fact, he measured the words he’d said to this yos’Phelium, and recounted them against his debts and promises.