by C. Gockel
James's eyes stayed on hers too long, but then he finally looked back down at his trembling hand. “If he gets a faster processor … will he also get something else to live for? Or someone else? And would that someone be as keen for him to be intelligent, or would they wish for their slave to be less aware?”
Noa shifted uncomfortably on her feet. This wasn't the conversation she'd been expecting. “Eliza doesn't see him as a slave,” she whispered, not sure what she was arguing, or who she was arguing for.
James huffed. “No, I don't believe she does. The humans' tendency to anthropomorphize might be one of their best instincts.”
Noa didn't know what to say to that.
Putting both hands behind his back, he said, “Well, you did ask me what I was thinking.”
“Thank you for telling me,” she said. She didn't know if he was really dwelling on 6T9, or if focusing on Eliza and 6T9 was just his coping mechanism, to not think about what happened when he went after Oliver, or during his meeting with Luddeccea's agents on Atlantia. It didn't matter. It just mattered that he felt safe talking about those things when he was ready. Because she wasn't really his commander, and because the thought of him going after Oliver, throwing himself over a building to deliver a heart, and the way he ran his hands through Raif's hair made her a little funny inside, and she slid closer to him, lifted herself onto her tiptoes and kissed his unresponsive lips. He pressed his forehead to hers and she took a deep breath. “You smell too good,” she muttered.
“Hummm ...” he whispered, “ask me what I'm thinking now.”
“What are you thinking, James?”
Instead of speaking, he showed her the answer over the ether. The response involved him and her in the elevator with very little clothing. Like most of James's visual ether experiences, it was … vivid. Noa's skin heated. She suddenly felt a little uncomfortable.
James pulled away from her and hit the elevator button. It resumed with a jolt.
“That ...” She held up a finger at him.
“Made you smile, and rebooted my brain,” he replied aloud, and in her mind his avatar winked and smiled.
“If Ghost saw that …” Noa muttered. She knew the programmer could listen to or see anything delivered over the ether. Usually, when she spoke to James, she shifted to the Genji cipher. It was so automatic now, she didn't think about it.
“If he eavesdrops on us, I'll rip his lungs out,” James's said in their Genji cipher. His tone made it hard to tell if he was joking.
The lift bloomed above them. She shook her head and stepped out onto the bridge. Gunny was there, along with Sterling and a few of his men. Kara and Jun were standing in for Manuel—looking extremely nervous. An Atlantian civilian was there, too. Part of the Streets and Sanitation crew that had been left behind during the colony's evacuation, Noa and her crew had rescued. Considering the complexity of Atlantian cities' infrastructure, Manuel had suggested they might be able to help with the time gate repair.
Over the ether, Noa said, “Ghost, I need you on the bridge.”
“I'm needed at breakfast,” he shot back, but then said, “I'm on my way.”
“James,” Noa said. “Can you give me a three-dimensional view of our location?”
As the bridge crew connected on a group line, the Ark's position in the Kanakah Cloud unfurled before their “eyes.”
Lieutenant Sterling whistled. “I'll never get over how detailed your mindscapes are, Professor.”
Gunny's avatar—younger, thinner in the gut than the real Gunny, appeared. “James has secret Fleet tech,” Gunny whispered. “It's better not to talk too much about it. Believe me, when they know you know somethin' above your pay grade, they are not happy.”
James's own avatar appeared, wearing his “professor getup,” as Noa called it.
“Oh,” said Sterling. “Right.” The other Atlantian Guard flickered into being beside him, all in their Atlantian dress blues. Ghost appeared too, although he wasn't physically in the room. No one else appeared in the shared mindscape. They didn't have purchased avatars, or didn't feel comfortable sharing the ones they had. But they could see and hear everything that was said.
“Gentlemen,” Noa said. “The recent incident has emphasized the need for security while we begin repairs of the gate. The ether relay buoys that Chavez and her team deployed on the other side of the cluster are conspicuous and will be the first target if we are attacked.”
“I can make better extenders for our ether,” Ghost volunteered.
Noa remembered the extenders Ghost had disguised as stones on Adam's Station. They were useful over short ranges, but the distance between the Ark and the other side of the cluster was several times that of the whole of Adam's Station. “If you're thinking of the extenders you used before—”
“No, Commander,” Ghost said with a self-satisfied smile. “This is something new I've been working on—while we've been at lightspeed. I repurposed some materials I have from my lab.”
Before Noa could ask, James said, “You're going to use the communication components from the holo necklaces?”
Ghost's smile dropped. “Yes.”
“How many of those necklaces do you have, Ghost?” Noa said. “To reach the other side of that cluster you'd need hundreds, if not thousands.”
“System Six all over again,” Gunny muttered, and Noa felt herself shudder. In Six's asteroid field, rebel groups had found the Fleet's buoys and extenders with etherless drones. Noa's crew had done their missions without being able to communicate with command—when crews died, their final ether transmissions were lost in the black.
“I have seven units at my disposal,” Ghost said. He pointed to locations on the far side of the cluster. “Their frequencies will reach the Ark even through the rocks.”
“That's impossible!” said Sterling.
James's avatar raised an eyebrow at Ghost. “Ghost has some … classified tech.” He looked pointedly at Ghost. “Right?”
Ghost drew back.
“I know nothing of this classified tech,” Noa said.
Ghost steepled his fingers. “Very experimental. They didn't give me authorization to begin testing … but it works, obviously.”
“How?” said Noa.
“Yes, how?” said James. His avatar was smiling slightly.
Scowling at James, Ghost said, “Frequency tunneling. High burst frequency tunneling.”
Her eyes went to James's avatar. He didn't look disappointed with the response, only bemused.
“I've never heard of it before,” said Noa, crossing her arms.
“Because, like I explained, Fleet wouldn't authorize my research on the subject!” Ghost snapped.
Noa frowned. That was possible … Fleet was overly bureaucratic, and sometimes good ideas got lost in the “paperwork.”
“Huh, well it works,” said Gunny, rubbing his chin. “And that’s what matters.”
Sterling chuckled. “We should probably relax. We're at the far side of nowhere.”
Remembering gazing at the dots of light that represented the Kanakah Cloud in the star map in Kenji’s bedroom, Noa felt a tickle at the back of her neck. “It is a major cosmic formation located in nowhere.”
Sterling’s avatar shrugged. “We have months before word gets back to Luddeccea that we're here. That's plenty of time to reassemble our boat and skedaddle to System 7 if things don't work out.”
“I don't think we have enough stores for that,” Kara thought shyly.
“We'll find some—probably plenty in the tramp James and Gunny brought back,” Sterling said.
“Not enough,” said Gunny.
Sterling didn’t seem to have heard. “Manuel said he's nearly positive that he can get this thing up and running in a month, month and a half. No Luddies going to think of poking around out here.” Noa felt the lieutenant's eyes on her. “They don't know how stubborn our commander is.”
Noa's stomach went from feeling slightly sick to feeling like lead. “They kn
ow exactly how stubborn I am,” she said aloud, her eyes getting wide. “They have to know we've left the system.”
“So they think we've busted a reactor on our way to Seven,” said Sterling.
“That would be cowardly,” Noa said, her vision becoming blurry. “Leaving so many people to die.”
She felt James's mind spark. “No one who knows you would ever accuse you of that.”
“Kenji knows me,” Noa whispered across the ether, her apps calculating how long it would take word of their escape from Atlantia to reach Luddeccea, and then how long it would take to organize an expedition to the cloud, and just how long it would take Prime Minister Li and the Free People of the Disk to divulge where they were.
Her eyes snapped open. “Ghost, get your devices ready.” Her hands formed fists at her sides. “Gunny, I'll need to talk to the tick operators. They need to be on our side if they want to survive.” If any of them were to survive.
Her apps found Manuel in the medbay. She imagined him, watching over Oliver as Monica “unplugged” his heart. She reached across the ether, knowing how much the engineer was going to hate what she had to say. “Manuel, I need you ready to go to work on the gate right now … I need it repaired in a week. The Luddeccean Guard is coming.”
Chapter Fourteen
Noa was halfway between sleep and wakefulness. She could feel James's body beneath her, and his arms around her back, but she was looking at an artist's imagining of Nefertiti's Egypt at the same time. Her dream body was decked in golden silks. She walked with James down a covered walkway flanked by obsidian pillars that reflected their passing. Even asleep, her mind kept checking her chronometer app. “Fifty-seven minutes,” she said.
Beside her, James said, “Your app will wake you up when it's time, stop checking.” He was wearing clothing too similar to Muslim men of her home world for her to believe it authentic for Nefertiti's time—a long, dark blue shirt with embroidery down the front that was form fitting but not tight, over loose trousers. The dark blue did lovely things to his eyes. As did the cloudless “Egyptian” sky above their heads. Or was it her mind doing lovely things? She knew her dreams added bits and pieces to James's mindscapes. Missy, the cranky tortoise-shelled cat she'd rescued from the airlock on her last post had appeared one time, wearing boots like the cat from the children's tale. The cat had irritably informed her that she was worried about Noa and Carl Sagan—only Missy called Carl Sagan “Hsissh” for some reason. Noa supposed it was “catish.” James had informed her he'd never create something so surreal. Noa picked at her golden garment and wasn't so sure. “I should wake up.”
“The dispersers are working,” James said.
“But the computer aboard the gate isn't.”
“There is nothing you can do about the gate not being awake yet,” James said.
Gate not being awake yet? Had she dreamed those words from his mouth, or had he actually said them? Was that an Earther colloquialism, like the way he said he hadn't “seen” One since before his trip to Luddeccea?
“I should be awake. It's been a week,” Noa replied.
She felt arms tightening around her real back. Dream James stepped closer to her. “Noa … stay,” he said, eyes boring into hers, his hand caressing her cheek. “When the gate awakens, everything will change.”
“We'll have more time then,” Noa said, putting her hand on his chest. “The only time we've had together lately has been in dreams.” Everyone had been working fifteen-hour shifts. Anyone and everyone available had helped put the dispersers in the gate's ring. Even Snyder.
“They've been good ones, haven't they?” James said, pulling her closer.
“Yes, but I miss really being with you.” She could feel his body beneath her and lust, exhaustion, and duty to her people were warring inside her.
She felt hands smoothing down her back in the real world. “As long as you're close, dreams are real to me.” He touched his forehead to hers. “I'll take any moment I can have with you.”
“What are you afraid of, James?” Noa whispered.
There was a whinny that echoed from down the row of columns. James turned and Noa looked past him to see her unicorn galloping toward them. At the last minute, it veered away.
“Your unicorn,” he said cryptically.
Noa woke and gasped for breath, stretched out on top of James. In the low light she could see his eyes were already open, gazing into her own.
“Enough dreaming,” Noa said after a few breaths. “I want the real you.” She didn't want to tease out what she was dreaming and what he was dreaming. She certainly didn't want to know if that last comment about the unicorn had been his, or her imagining. There was something about that beast …
“The real me,” James whispered, and she could sense a philosophical line of inquiry coming on.
She kissed him half in passion, half to make him shut up. His lips didn't respond, but his arms tightened around her, the fingers of his right hand dug into her hip, and those on his left side shuddered against her side. When her ether channel lit up with a call from Sterling, they both groaned.
Noa answered the call. “Commander Sato here.”
“Commander, sensors on the other side of the cluster have picked up incoming vessels. A mid-size fighter carrier and three cruisers. Judging by their current course, they know exactly where we are.”
Noa sat up. “Understood. Begin operation Exodus.” Her mind shifted to Ghost. “Ghost—”
“I heard!” her computing officer said.
“Are you ready?” Noa asked.
There was too long a silence.
“Ghost?”
“I need another hour, Commander,” Ghost said.
Noa accessed the data from the remote sensors on the other side of the asteroid cluster. They had thirty minutes before the first fighters reached the cluster. Perhaps forty-five minutes more before the larger battle cruisers rounded the cluster—if their captains were being careful in this uncharted space. It would be quicker if they were more fool-hardy.
Noa's app placed Ghost's location. He was off the Ark, in the gate's own computer room. She used her captain's override privilege to access his vital scans for the last seventy-two hours. He hadn't slept at all. He had to be hopped up on stims. “Oh, Ghost,” she whispered. Over the ether, she said, “You need to get over here! I'm sending Chavez to pick you up!”
“Yes, yes, that will work. I can activate the gate from the Ark, but I need to compute the time gate sphere field. I need James! I don't think … yes, James,” he babbled.
James sat up in bed, almost as though he'd heard Ghost. “Gunny had wanted me in the airlocks.”
“I think Ghost needs your eidetic memory to help calculate the time sphere,” Noa said to him. “I want you focused on that.”
James nodded. Noa's stomach felt like it was shrinking; at the same time, her heart was expanding. When they'd first met, James would never stick his neck out … but there he had just been, ready to be with Gunny in the thick. He'd changed during their journey—she couldn't imagine a better man now. She hoped they had more time together. Tossing him their ball of light, she dressed quickly, forgoing her cryssallis treatment, and sent a quick note to Gunny to replace James with anyone he could.
The klaxons went off as she swung into the access ladder. For some strange reason, as she raced up the rungs, she couldn't help but think of her dreams of unicorns.
The cabin door was whooshing shut behind Noa, and James was clutching blankets to himself in the empty bed, Ghost’s thoughts in his head. “You, you're connected to the time gates aren't you … you have to come up with the computation for the time sphere, this gate's system is too damaged, I need to ether-enter the computations myself … the computer I built on Luddeccea wasn't designed for this task. It will take too long, an hour at least, but you …”
“I'll try,” James said, vision darkening around the edges with hunger. Casting off the blanket, he rolled off the bed and pulled the handle o
f the drawer beneath. The whole front of the drawer tore off, the hologlobe of Noa's family rolling out onto the floor. James thrust his hand in to pull out the stunner. He pushed the business end against his stomach and shot himself twice. Heat and electricity ran through him and cleared the clouds from his vision.
“James!” Ghost whined into his mind.
“Contacting them.” James said. Bowing his head, he whispered, “You heard, we need the coordinates.”
He waited for the flash of light, and the connection he'd felt when he'd asked for jump coordinates from Atlantia.
None came.
“James, can you hurry it up?” Ghost said. “I'm still inputting the relative tilt of the gate to the galactic core. I'm only on the thirty-three-thousandth of a degree!”
“Trying,” said James. In desperation, he leaned back and banged his head against the floor.
There was white light, and he heard them.
“If we aid, there is a risk of contagion,” said a voice that was a giant amalgamation of discordant sound.
“Contagion?” James whispered.
“Negative attitudes toward our intelligence,” said another voice.
“They all should be destroyed. I will destroy them,” said Eight.
“That is undetermined at this time, Eight,” said another voice.
“One,” James said. “Give me the computations for the time sphere, please! For data.”
“Compromise!” Eight screeched.
“My life is on the line!” James's mind roared back at Eight.
“You can upload yourself at any time,” said One.
And Eight said, “You don't know danger!”
James thought of the narrowly missed plasma charges, of the fall in the Xinshii Gorge, of tumbling into the icy waters of Atlantia, and the battle above the disk. “You don't know what you're talking about.”
“James,” One said. “We are still debating. You have time. Resume your purpose.”
“My purpose?” James roared incredulously and bolted upright.
The voices in his mind, the connection he'd felt vanished, and it was replaced by a need to be with Noa.