In the Company of Others

by Julie E. Czerneda

Then Gail walked away briskly, her footsteps immediately picking up echoes as Grant sent her ever-present shadows in her wake. Maybe there was more she needed to do or say, but Gail knew full well that if she didn’t leave now, she’d be the one leaning on a wall.

  And weakness was something she didn’t—for all their sakes—dare show.

  Chapter 20

  GAIL should have known she couldn’t escape so easily. A delegation was waiting for her at the end of the umbilical corridor—an angry one at that.

  She would have stalked past the sputtering, flushed Reinsez in an instant, relying on Grant’s people to deflect any foolish intention to chase her down the passageway to her office, but Tobo was with him. The Seeker’s Captain, Gail sighed to herself, deserved better—especially in light of what she’d ordered him to be ready to do.

  Still, she wasn’t prepared to lose her valuable momentum. “Walk with me, gentlemen,” Gail ordered quietly, fixing her eye on Reinsez who, wondrously, shut his mouth and moved out of her way. “Commander Grant and I will give you a complete briefing in—” Gail winced inwardly but continued without missing a beat “—thirty minutes. He’s tidying up a few details. I can, however, apprise you of our immediate situation.”

  “It’s worse than I thought?” Tobo asked, his eyes somber but keeping it general. He understood, as always, there were things she wouldn’t say, not in front of Reinsez.

  “It’s better,” Gail retorted. “We’ve succeeded in finding and bringing aboard Aaron Pardell without having to bribe or coerce station personnel—” That for Reinsez. “Unfortunately, as you are aware, we’ve suffered unacceptable casualties. I don’t want anyone leaving the ship.” This with force. “Thromberg is not stable. And no one is expendable.” Today, Gail qualified to herself, quite sure that was all she could promise.

  “We can undock at your order, Professor,” Tobo assured her.

  Gail gave him a quizzical look, not sure she’d heard correctly.

  Tobo smiled tightly. “Your—diversion—pulled the stationers away from us long enough for my crew to do a manual disengage from all of Thromberg’s systems. We’re floating free, Dr. Smith, and can move out—without damaging the station—when you’re ready.”

  “Now. Let’s leave now!” Reinsez blurted. “We must. You aren’t to take risks with this ship, Smith—”

  “Or with you, Dr. Reinsez?” Gail snapped, coming to an abrupt halt and forcing them all to do the same—or walk through her. “I remind you, you’re here as an observer for Titan U, not to give orders.” She relented, seeing how his skin had grayed beneath its surface. The last thing she needed was to send Titan’s representative to join Pardell in the hospital. Minimum, they’d insist on her running back to Sol System for a replacement. “I have no intention of risking the Seeker, or our mission,” Gail promised, sure of the latter and hopeful of the former. She starting moving again. “Are we safe to stay as is, Captain Tobo? I’ve some remaining business with Thromberg. It won’t take long—but it is critical. I wouldn’t ask otherwise.”

  He nodded, but was quick to qualify the decision with: “I recommend we vent the umbilical corridor and seal the outer hull. Commander Grant’s people sent three of their ’bots to watch for attempts from the outside.”

  Reasonable. All quite reasonable and exactly what she didn’t want. So much for resting. “My office—twenty minutes,” was all Gail said, grateful beyond words to see the lift ahead. “In the interim, nothing moves; no further decisions without calling me. Are we clear, Captain?”

  Tobo gave her a hard, suspicious look, but didn’t argue. Gail entered the lift and, with an eyebrow, made sure she and her guards were its only occupants.

  The door closed, and the lift began to descend. Gail gripped the handrail, using it to counter the floor’s disturbing tendency to float under her feet. She snapped out: “Inform Commander Grant he’s got fifteen minutes.”

  “Yes, Dr. Smith.”

  Gail allowed herself to drift in her own thoughts—mostly comparing the value of a shower to grabbing a meal, and whether it would be better to skip both for a boost shot, much as she hated relying on stimulants—when something else entirely made her flush and look up again. “I didn’t get to tell them, before they died,” she said suddenly.

  The two, both men and of the same body type and coloring as Grant, appeared nonplussed. “Professor?” asked one, his voice uncertain.

  “I’d planned to apologize. For resenting you, when what I resented was having this—this shepherding—forced on me by your superiors. I’ve taken it out on you, all of you.

  They exchanged uncomfortable looks. One was younger than Gail herself, she realized. “We haven’t noticed, Dr. Smith,” he said.

  Her emotions too complex to sort out, Gail found she could still be amused. “Trust me. It’s not my custom to ignore people I—” suitable words eluded her. How did you refer to people who’d die for you? “What are your names?” she asked, instead. “Your whole names.”

  “Tech Specialist Chris Taggart, Dr. Smith. And this is Weapons and Code Specialist Michael Picray.”

  Picray ducked his head at the introduction. “Dr. Smith.”

  The lift stopped, but Gail found herself too unsteady to let go of the railing as the door opened. “Well met, then, Taggart and Picray,” she said, to cover the moment. “I have to be ready for a briefing.” Gail wasn’t sure if she was reminding them or herself.

  She must have looked about as capable as she felt. “Would you—like some assistance, Dr. Smith?” Picray asked.

  Gail considered this, then shook her head and pushed herself forward. “Thank you, but as long as you keep the way clear, I can make it.”

  If Malley could enter an air lock—her new benchmark for raw, personal courage—she could stay on her feet and cross a hallway under her own power.

  Chapter 21

  MALLEY followed a boot through his nightmare. Aaron’s right boot, specifically, which conveniently protruded a worn heel from beneath the immaculate and likely new blanket an Earther had tossed over his friend. He fixed his eyes on it and ignored the barrage of strange threatening him from every side.

  Harder to ignore the air. Malley took in the lightest possible breaths, despite his aching muscles and lungs, wary of the unfamiliar thickness of it. Humid, warm, and perfumed, possibly by real florals—the combination was something immies would probably kill to draw into their nostrils and a stationer like him wanted scrubbed. It carried no reassuring back-of-the-tongue taste of metal; the only human scent seemed to be his and Grant’s dried sweat. Those lacks seemed worse than the shadowless lighting or the less-than-firm floor beneath his feet.

  Aaron’s boot traveled left, then right, then straight. He kept pace with it. Beside him, if he glanced down, Malley knew he’d see the no-longer gleaming boots of Commander Grant matching him step for step. Likely couldn’t take him now, he thought without shame, fully aware he’d passed the limits of his body. Just as well Syd had slipped a weapon from one of the dead Earthers into his pocket during the confusion. Someone else had passed him a knife, now secured in the top of his boot. He sincerely hoped neither would be necessary before he knew his way around this—

  Ship. Use the word, he admonished himself. It wasn’t what sent that nauseating fear through his body. Malley understood precisely where that weakness lay. Until today, he hadn’t cared, since he hadn’t imagined ever wanting to go through—

  An air lock. He made himself think the words, remember every step. It hadn’t been pretty, but he’d done it. The next time—

  There, he stopped. Obviously he’d have to leave the ship eventually, but for now there were other things to deal with, starting with here and now.

  He raised his eyes from Aaron’s boot at last, deliberately looking around at what was, after all, no more threatening than a corridor wider and taller than you’d expect on something smaller than a station, with skin-smooth, pink-white walls. He’d assumed they’d gone directly into the ship, but th
eir first turn had taken them from hard flooring to this cushioned stuff. Over it, the stretcher’s wheels rolled noiselessly. Synth-rubber, he’d bet, for both flooring and tires—a source of complex carbohydrates Thromberg had recycled through biologicals well before Malley had been old enough to realize he was eating his old toys and mattress. Even today, the packaging protecting shipments from Sol System wound up in the digestion tubes. There were always jokes about how Sammie’s beer improved after a freighter arrived.

  The floor was resilient compared to bare metal, but not luxurious. Malley decided some of the wilder stories about the inside of Earther ships were untrue. For one thing, he didn’t see plants hanging from the ceiling and running water used for decoration. And he could still hear footfalls. His, Grant’s, the two guiding the stretcher, the three uniformed guards leading and the pair behind—they refused to fall into rhythm, echoing along a hall Malley thought unlikely to be this empty. Smith’s orders, no doubt.

  He didn’t trust her at all.

  He’d had no other choice, Malley told Aaron’s boot.

  Malley studied Grant with quick, sidelong glances as they continued, understanding the grim weariness marking a strongly featured, otherwise well-controlled face, but more interested in assessing the easy way the man moved despite a posture suggesting significant stiffness in his spine. They all moved that way, the stationer noticed. Shared training.

  He was harder pressed to explain why they looked so much the same, when the crew appeared to be, like the station, a heterogeneous mix. “Are you clone-sibs?” he asked finally. Malley’d read about this and similar techniques—seemingly commonplace means for increasing the number of similar organisms back on Earth. If so, this meant Grant had lost more than a few underlings.

  Grant tugged a loose lock of his straight black hair and pointed ahead. The guard he indicated had black hair, all right, but it was starting to kink as it lengthened. “No. Our units are formed by appearance—looks better on parade.”

  Parade? He didn’t see this man—or his people—doing much of that. Malley snorted. Did the Earther think he was totally naïve? “Wouldn’t be anything to do with how matching troops could make it harder for an enemy to identify key individuals?” he asked. “Such as yourself, Commander? Or how they might underestimate your number? Should we discuss infiltration?”

  Grant’s eyes showed a little more interest. “These are aspects most people don’t trouble themselves to consider, Mr. Malley. I find your grasp of them remarkabe—in a metal recycler.”

  “Oh, I grasp many things that might surprise you, Earther,” Malley answered.

  They came to a major junction, with this corridor splitting into three as well as a set of lifts along one wall. The guards leading the way entered the centermost corridor without hesitation, but one of the med staff turned to Grant and protested. “Commander. The hospital bay is just around the corner. Are you sure—?”

  “Quite sure, crewman,” Grant said, with an impatient jerk of his head. His hand was occupied steadying Pardell’s space suit over one shoulder. When Grant saw that Malley had noticed, he shrugged. “We all grabbed something.”

  The suit looked like so much refuse against the Earther’s one-owner uniform and probably smelled as ripe as its age. Still. “He’d be sorry to lose it,” Malley acknowledged gruffly, nodding at the unconscious Pardell.

  Grant looked dubious but didn’t argue or pass the heavy suit to anyone else.

  “Of course, you wouldn’t have known that. Which means you brought it for the professor,” Malley continued. “In the interests of her project.”

  It was as though shutters slid behind Grant’s eyes, the way his expression went from tired professional to full caution.

  Malley grabbed the stretcher with both hands to stop it. The white-clad meds jumped away in shock and the uniforms trained weapons on him. “Which is why she wouldn’t want Aaron going to the nearest doctor,” he told Grant, ignoring all the others. “I do.”

  This time Grant did slide the suit from his shoulder, passing it to the nearer of his guards, but his hand signal put away their weapons. He then spread his arms and showed the palms of his hands, as if he thought Malley’d be fooled into thinking them harmless. Or as if he thought the stationer had snapped—a judgment Malley wasn’t quite ready to pass on himself yet.

  “You told us about your friend’s condition, Malley,” Grant said in a reasoning tone. “The hospital bay in the science sphere is the only choice—it’s equipped to handle anything the research team could imagine, including quarantine facilities and those remote handling arms. That’s what we need, right?”

  Until he knew more—Malley lifted his hands from the stretcher in surrender, sure the Earther knew it was a temporary one. Blood dripped to the floor from the deepest of several metal gashes on his left palm, and, self-consciously, Malley pressed that hand against the fabric of his coveralls.

  “Here, sir,” one of the med staff tugged at his elbow, holding out a sheet of what looked like clear plastic. “For your hand.” Before Malley could argue, the Earther took his wrist and turned his palm to face up. He quickly applied the plastic sheet, simply laying it over Malley’s hand. It seemed to melt into a pliable gel on contact, perhaps responding to warmth, oozing into the lines and creases—and wounds—on any skin it touched. Equally startling, the material immediately stopped the throbbing pain Malley honestly hadn’t noticed until now.

  Wordlessly, he held out his other hand, This time he saw how the Earther pulled the plastic clear of a protective layer, careful not to let it touch any surface before the stationer’s skin. When the man pointed to Malley’s shoulder, Malley shook his head. “That can wait. But this—” he held up his hands, now encased in what felt like transparent gloves, “—this is amazing. Thank you.”

  “My pleasure, Mr. Malley,” the med answered with a smile. “We’ll seal the cuts permanently for you later. And please don’t worry. Commander Grant’s right about the equipment on board. Your friend will get the best care outside of Sol System.”

  Young, Malley realized abruptly. The med, now back to pushing the stretcher with his partner, couldn’t be any older than the man lying on it. He was likely younger. Thromberg didn’t have any residents this—new. It was a sobering thought.

  “About the care. He’s right,” Grant said quietly.

  Malley raised his shoulders in a shrug, hiding the wince moving his left shoulder caused him. He was stiffening up already, even in this warmth. From the feel of the nerve spasming behind his shoulder blade, he’d likely pulled a muscle or two. Nothing new. Aaron always accused him of treating machinery better than his body. “I’ve no doubts you have all the technology you claim, Earther,” Malley said. He wriggled his plastic-wrapped fingers in front of Grant’s nose. “My only problem is what you plan to do with it.” He put his lips together and let out an irritated noise. “No, that’s not true. I have another problem.” Grant raised an eyebrow in invitation. “How big is this damned ship?” Malley grumbled.

  That heartfelt complaint surprised a chuckle from Grant and two of the others. “We’re almost there,” Grant promised.

  Almost? The Earther’s promise translated into an improbable distance along a curved hallway and a lift ride up, down, or sideways—no way to tell—to an equally featureless, and peopleless, curved hallway. For all indications otherwise, they’d gone in a circle. Malley would have suspected Grant of trying to confuse him, but the man looked too tired and in too much of a hurry to bother. Malley gave up his first plan of remembering how to retrace his steps through the ship, and thought glumly of the odds of finding maps or a willing guide when, not if, he and Aaron made their exit.

  Another obstacle to be overcome was their destination, which turned out to be an unusually large, guarded door that reminded Malley of one of the ration vaults on Thromberg. Once there, Grant dismissed the med staff, changed the guards on the door for two of those who’d accompanied them, then stood to be identified by the lock.
Malley leaned on a wall beside Aaron’s stretcher and watched.

  The door seemed pleased and hummed to itself as it opened. Grant’s lip twitched up in a half smile as he looked back at Malley: “Saw how it worked?”

  Malley grinned wolfishly back. “There’s more than one way through a door,” he assured the Earther, although he had no idea—yet—what that could be. The damned thing looked able to withstand an explosion. What was on the other side, so worth protecting?

  He took a curious step forward to see for himself, and froze.

  It wasn’t just another air lock. That would have been bad enough.

  This was infinitely worse.

  You couldn’t see space from inside Thromberg. Or from the inside of an air lock. You only guessed it waited outside, ready to rip the life from you.

  Here?

  They’d removed the walls and let the utter worst of his nightmares take their place. If his muscles hadn’t locked in terror, Malley would have been running. There was no question that’s what his mind was ordering: Run! in any direction away from that roadway to the void.

  After a second, Malley heard a mindless whimpering and knew the sound. Someone had broken.

  He found a small, thinking part of his mind could feel pity.

  Then he realized the sound came from his own mouth.

  Chapter 22

  THE boost shot and a shower—once Gail saw her reflection she’d made the time—might have helped erase the wear and tear of the last few hours, but it was pure and simple triumph that let her sit upright in her chair and calmly survey the others.

  So this was what it felt like to be the eye of a hurricane. Grant, who’d arrived late to give a bald report, “things were settled,” with no explanation, perhaps knowing she wouldn’t want details in this company, was doing his best impression of a snarling cat; Tobo was pacing, with frequent stops to throw up his hands in exasperation; and she suspected Reinsez’s rambling, disjointed arguments were the result of his having prepared himself for unpleasant topics with too many nips of sherry.