“Come on, we go quick now!” Pham’s voice. She snapped her air bottle loose and pushed my empty one aside, then pulled me forward. The blurry image of a transparent observation boat swam in front of me as she pulled me along, and then we were inside of it.
The boat sped toward the horizon and heaved into space with a sickening surge of speed. I passed out.
T
here were half-conscious sensations of being bathed . . . lying naked on the padded benches while a sponge was worked across my skin, warm and wet, moving from my toes to my brow and back again. Strong fingers washing my hair, warm water coursing through it.
At another time, there were little hands exploring my face. Tiny fingers touched my eyelids and ran along the side of my nose, then worked their way in between my lips and explored my ears. Soft little palms patted my freshly shaved skin.
S
o, hi! You awake!”
Stars were everywhere. The fiery dust of the galaxy was bright and alive in every direction.
I sat up stiffly. Silhouetted against the stars, Pham sat in the pilot’s seat with the baby asleep on her shoulder. Both of them glowed from the lights of the instruments.
I was dressed in a jumpsuit and deck shoes and was scrubbed and rested, and felt strangely detached from the memory of standing on the black planet, dying.
“How long have I been asleep?”
“Ah, you been asleep long time, Eddie boy. You kinda dead there, a while.” She swiveled around to face me and said it with good humor, the stars shining back out of her eyes.
“Tyrone’s dead,” I said.
“Yah, I know. I’m sorry. I call Susan, tell her. Pretty hard for you, too, I think.”
I nodded and stood up, then looked around at the transparent vessel and at the stars, trying to judge the thrust of the engines under my feet. She had us accelerating at a good rate.
“Where are we, Pham?”
She pointed down through the edge of the bubble beside her. I sat down in the other seat, and her hair brushed against my arm as I leaned past her to see.
Floating in the blackness, far behind us, was a pitted grey sphere, tiny and insignificant in the distance as it dwindled like a dark moon under a weak sun.
“So,” she said. “Black planet one day behind, fleet two days in front. We move pretty quick.”
“The fleet? It’s still together? What’s happened?”
“Nothing happen. Fleet still got two, three days before it’s close enough to torus for attack. Empty-Eyes, he pretty pissed off ’cause it taking so long.”
“I don’t understand—Pham, how long have I been gone?”
“You don’t know, hah? You pretty confused there for a while. Four weeks you been gone. All your friends, they wonder. I wonder, too, then decide to drag your dumb head back. Empty-Eyes, he hear I’m going, suddenly it’s all his idea to get you. ‘Get dumb-head-ass back here,’ he say, ‘tell him to make all these cowards stop dragging their feets.’ ”
We were sitting side by side in the forward seats now, and Pham had turned sideways to look at me with her knees up on the cushion and the baby curled at her waist. She wore just her brief shorts and a half-length t-shirt. Her eyes and her skin were soft in the starlight.
Four weeks. I’d thought months, lifetimes.
“What cowards is he talking about?”
“Cowards like your Russian friends, Eddie. Somehow all their ships get wrong information by accident, go off wrong direction. Then on Lowhead, Navy officers suddenly all got to go to Allerton’s funeral—no one can say no, hah? But all the time, everybody wait for you, and wait. But nothing. They want you to stop Empty-Eyes and his black-shirts, Eddie.”
“Allerton’s dead?”
“Yah. Looks like he slip away home like dog, eat bad meat one night. By accident.”
“I see. So the torus is still there?”
“Yah—good thing, I think. Lots of people, they want to take little boats and go through. They believe in stories. Me, too. But not much time—Empty-Eyes, he got two thousand officers with him, say drones got to go.”
No fleet of Polaski’s would stop the drones. No fleet anywhere.
“You?” I said. “You’re going through the tunnel?”
“Yah, if we still got time.”
“But you took the time to come back for me?”
“Maybe I owe you a little bit, Eddie. And maybe I hope you come, too.”
“Chan and I? How does she feel about leaving behind—”
Pham’s hand touched my arm, then she moved it down to hold my hand in hers.
“China-Girl gone, Eddie.”
“Chan? She went through?”
“No. Day after you go, she pack bags and leave. She not tell anyone where she go. Nobody see her. I’m sorry, Eddie.”
P
ham slept against my shoulder while I held the baby in my lap. The galaxy of stars outside the bubble rolled around us and then stopped again, as we turned over to aim the engines forward at the half-way point. Pham and the baby stirred from the brief easing of thrust.
“Pham? Tuyet?”
“Mm?”
“How did you find me?”
She pulled herself a little closer and reached over to adjust the baby’s blanket. “You pretty easy to find, Eddie, standing out there in the middle of the dirt like that.”
“No, that’s not what I mean. Back in the Pacific, when you showed up at the island. How did you know who I was, and where to find us?”
She pulled herself up and rubbed her eyes. Then she reached down to her sides and pulled the t-shirt up over her head, and let it fall to the deck behind her. She lifted the baby and put it to her breast.
“Eddie,” she said, “There’s something I never tell you.” She looked down at the baby. “I think maybe not so good I don’t tell you, selfish, maybe. But it gave me reason to hate you. You killed my father.”
There was a time, I thought, when I wouldn’t have heard. But now I just felt tired. The radio, and the clothes, in the back room of the bungalow.
“The power cell,” I said. “Jesus, Tuyet, I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “No, Eddie. Good thing you kill shithead father. Always I too afraid to kill him. But just the same, all these years I think, ‘Here pretty good reason to hate perfect guy. He not so perfect now.’ ”
“You were with him on the island? He invented that cell, and you still hated him?”
“Hah! He invent nothing, old prick. He was just science teacher in camps. He sneak out one night, leave mother behind, don’t say nothing. But I see him go and I follow. Big argument, he say go back.
“Always I want something from him, Eddie, but always he’s scheming, stealing, making big plans while I got to work all the time. Go with soldiers, make money. Little-girl virgin first time, big price and all that.
“So father and I we go to Indonesia. Mother come later, he say, but when we get there I find out he working for Indonesia government all of a sudden, and soon he talking to American people all the time, too, late at night. Then we running again, then pretty soon he’s big guy again at American university, got money and car and nice clothes. For him, never me. He tell me go back to mother. Then one day he not come home, but next day he there and we running again, out to islands. He fuck with Americans, I think. Stupid.”
“Yes,” I said. “So you saw me there that night?”
“Both of us see you. I think, ‘Here’s a strong guy, stand up to my father, take what he wants.’ Same time I hate you, like I got to kill you or something.”
“Both you and your father?”
“Nah. Father just sit and smoke pipe till he all curled up like baby. Me and serving boy see you. Kip. Kip, he see you go away in helicopter next morning, so he run down and leave in boat same direction. I pretty mean to him sometimes, tease him about not talking, so he leave by himself without saying anything to me. But I got other boat, one with motor we come in, so I go to big island with helicopter base. Th
at’s where I meet shithead Rosler, cleaning airplanes. I treat him nice, find out who you are. Hang around, and one day I steal little plane and follow him when he go, because he tell me he getting transferred to secret stuff—meaning power cell project, I know.”
She shifted the baby to the other breast, then glanced up.
The stars above rolled slightly as the shuttle corrected to follow the fleet. Ahead of us, still invisible beneath the shuttle, the passage to Serenitas lay no more than two days away.
There was nothing more to stop me. I could float past the drones and through the tunnel, ahead of Polaski’s approaching fleet. Free at last, with the dream of land within my grasp. No one had any claims on me, and no one waited. No one had any expectations at all.
“I’ve lost everything, haven’t I, Tuyet?”
She cradled the baby in one arm and reached out with the other to take my hand. She didn’t answer, and we just sat and rode together through the darkness, listening to the baby’s sucking and watching the stars.
“All right,” I said. “Tell me about Polaski’s fleet. Everything there is to know.”
I
t was breathtaking in its size, a wall of ships as wide as space itself. It filled the sky above and stretched into the distance on every side, six thousand engines flickering restlessly as they waited for the word, drifting upward toward the grey torus half a million miles above.
Pham and I tipped our seats back and watched out the top as I floated the boat up under the fleet, listening to the command channels on the radio and looking for the familiar markings of Hull 00.
“We show forty-four minutes, Mr. Polaski,” said a man whose voice I didn’t recognize. “Cannon synchronized.”
“I really care, Peeber,” said Polaski from somewhere above. “What the hell are you telling me for?”
There was a long pause.
“Mr. Polaski,” said someone else, picking her words carefully. “We should remind you that FleetSys will control timing starting at minus two minutes, and that after that only top-list officers can give final authorization. As fleet officer you are first on that list. Unless you take yourself off of it, you are going to need some of this information we are giving you.”
“What do you think, Stedback,” said Polaski in answer, “that I’m going to take a nap?”
“Very well, Mr. Polaski. Flight Fourteen, cannon synchronized.”
I looked at Pham.
“Less than forty-five minutes,” I said. “I think you should take your chance while you can, as soon as you drop me off. You can still make it to the torus ahead of the fleet if you start now.”
“I will wait.”
I studied her face for a minute.
“All right. It’s up to you. But don’t wait near the ship. Pull at least a thousand miles ahead. You said there are still two working shuttles on board Zero-Zero—I can take one of those to meet up with you.”
“Okay. Over there! Big zero-ship. Empty-Eyes, he got big trouble now.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
“Still, Eddie, I think you should just shoot him, or open airlock or something. Why not?”
“Because then there’s another dozen officers that can give the okay, that’s why. Polaski’s not stupid enough to get shot, anyway.”
“So, okay, tell FleetSys don’t listen to shithead. You main guy more than him, anyway, no?”
“No, Tuyet, we’ve been through this. It takes two fleet officers to change who FleetSys obeys, and Polaski and I are the only ones left. We took you off the list back when you were waving that gun around all the time.”
“Yah, okay, fine. Go see how long you can hold breath, then. You turn blue, I bet.”
“Here we go.”
Pham put the baby up to pat my face good-bye after I coupled the tail of the boat to Polaski’s ship, but she herself held back. The airlock groaned shut, cutting her off from view.
The suit was uncomfortable, but at least I could leave the helmet off for the time being. The air on the ship was rancid, and the deck was covered with trash. The ship was hot and quiet, with only the sound of the radios coming down the lift from the MI decks.
The lift wasn’t working. I couldn’t pull myself up the ladder while holding onto the helmet, so I had to clip it to my side.
One more step to remember.
Rung by rung I pulled my way up the sixty feet to the MI decks, listening to the radio conversation that crackled back and forth across the giant fleet.
“Targets still not maneuvering. Bearings on sixty-two percent of the drone ships still intersect the torus. Twenty-three minutes to full thrust . . .”
“Inter-flight coordination on, target bracketing for first pulse. Those suckers are going to run or melt this time, boys . . .”
When my head rose up over the deck, Polaski was looking at me. He sat in the command chair on the far side of the equipment island, drumming his fingers on the armrests with his gun within easy reach. His grey eyes watched me out of his pale face, unblinking, unconcerned.
I walked to the communications console before stopping to face him. I resisted the temptation to unclip the helmet again. The deck was filthy and badly lit, with lamps missing and console panels lying open. The work on them had been abandoned.
“I understand you wanted to see me,” I said.
“Not anymore,” he said. “You aren’t needed.”
“Was I ever?”
“You had your uses.”
I glanced down at the base of the communications console.
“I had uses until when?” I said. “Until you had your aliens? Did they give you a better excuse than I did to put your boot to the world’s throat like you always wanted?”
“That’s right, Torres. Your little mission wasn’t much use anymore then, was it?”
The radio crackled overhead. “Ready for general quarters, Mr. Polaski.”
He flicked a finger against the armrest. “Fine.” I was trying to calculate the distance to his gun when he glanced at my helmet.
“I keep wondering why you’re wearing your suit, Torres,” he said. “Has Colonel Pham been giving you ideas?”
When I didn’t answer he went on.
“You don’t have the balls, Torres. And anyway, you always want the same thing I want, don’t you? Anything I say is fine with you? That’s the real truth, isn’t it, Torres?”
Still I didn’t answer.
“I hear you killed your buddy,” he said.
“So what was it, Polaski?” I said, having decided on the distances. “Once you had your aliens you needed Pham and me out of the way? Or was it Carolyn Dorczak you were trying to kill in the landing dome that night, as a little favor to Allerton. Or maybe Roddy McKenna, who knew something that made you nervous? Who was it Allerton was bragging about being able to see through a dome from a million miles out, Polaski? And whose hand was on the switch of those masers you had him mount in your leased freighters, in return for the tritium shipments?”
His eyebrow rose. “You always were too smart, Torres.”
“Who killed McKenna, Polaski?”
Easy.
“But,” I said, “the attack on the landing dome only got people nervous, didn’t it? Not enough reason to attack the alien fleet, not yet. But the industries dome, now, that got your fleet off the ground for you, didn’t it? A few civilians dead? Amazing how nothing important was hit. That’s what gave you away, Polaski. That’s how I knew it wasn’t the same as the attack on Wallneck.”
I’d moved a step closer to the communications console. Right foot, toe down. Ten inches.
Polaski laughed. “So you lied, didn’t you, Torres? That captive alien didn’t tell Allerton about the Indian mines. You told it, and then you told Allerton. Bought yourself a little time, didn’t you?”
“That’s right, Polaski. FleetSys!”
Polaski straightened.
“Yes, Mr. Torres.”
“Modify authorization top-list—”
�
�Todd!” Polaski’s hand jabbed at his armrest. “Get—”
I slammed my boot into the breakers under the communications console, and drove them through the panel with a splintering of plastic; Polaski jerked forward in his seat, then stopped as he saw that the light over his microphone was dead.
“Yes, Mr. Polaski?” said Jacob Todd. Polaski didn’t try to answer, but glanced at his gun and then back at me. FleetSys’ smooth voice continued from the speakers.
“Your command is incomplete, Mr. Torres.”
“Modify top-list,” I said, “to allow attack authorization by me only.”
“What?” Polaski got to his feet. “You do that, Torres, and you’ll authorize an attack with a gun in your ear. FleetSys, ignore him!”
“Stand by, Mr. Polaski. Mr. Torres, exclusive authorization will require the system administrator, or the administrator’s password.”
Polaski stopped at that point, then relaxed with the beginnings of a smirk on his face. He eased himself back into his seat. FleetSys needed its senior-most priest.
“The password,” I said, “is ‘Saint Catherine.’ ”
“Fuck!” Polaski snatched up his gun just as Todd’s voice crackled over the speakers again.
“Mr. Polaski, was there something I can do for you? You’re not responding.”
FleetSys interrupted them. “Password is correct, Mr. Torres.” Polaski had his gun in his hand and was edging his way around the console toward me. “Concurrence is now required by one other fleet officer. I believe only Mr. Polaski is available.”
Polaski stopped, while I stared blankly at the speakers.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
Don’t overdo it. “FleetSys,” I said, “it’s Mr. Polaski I need to exclude.”
“No sir,” said Polaski. He smacked his revolver down on the console. “Too smart again, huh, Torres? That thing knows who’s in charge here.”
“Mr. Torres,” said FleetSys, “you may authorize the use of force, or you may demand a polling of top-list officers if authorization has already been given, but that is all.”
A Grey Moon Over China Page 49