In the Company of Others

by Julie E. Czerneda

  With locks.

  Abandoning the social niceties of his odd-cycle upbringing, Malley had gone through everything he could find. Which was-n’t much. He vaguely remembered annoying a tech named Cooper—the name was inscribed on several personal articles, as if the man was paranoid about losing things. Cupboards and drawers held clothing suitable for someone of conservative tastes and a smallish frame, along with a collection of vids. Westerns. Malley knew better than to watch fiction with big, open skies. Sunsets weren’t bad. Starry nights made him queasy.

  So when the lights dimmed, for want of anything to do—or break that wasn’t Cooper’s—he’d lain down and tried to rest.

  Aaron was likely doing the same, lying in the dark, wondering what the Earthers were doing.

  Yeah. As if he believed that. Malley stretched again without thinking and met the wall this time. No, Aaron would be wallowing in guilt. You could talk to him until you ran out of air, but nothing penetrated that thick skull once an idea took hold of it.

  Ideas. The stationer winced to remember how he’d been so consumed by his own moment of revelation he hadn’t particularly thought how Aaron might react. But it had been so—so amazing! Things were beginning to fit together with that whole-ness he loved. The universe, Malley firmly believed, was prepared to be reasonable and make sense—if you knew the questions to ask it.

  Why hadn’t the spacers shared their filaments? They’d been rare as well as prized, but the records were clear: spacers knew you couldn’t share or steal someone else’s. First come, only served. It had to be because each Quill filament, once used, bonded irreversibly somehow to its host. This was the premise of Gail’s protective suits and gloves—that the Quill recognized individual human beings, hypothetically, through that person’s genetic makeup.

  What use was that recognition so many years later? For some reason Gail hadn’t shared, she was obviously assuming present-day Quill would also recognize, and be unable to harm, the same or very similar genetic makeup. Did she know something of their life cycle? Had she some evidence? Or was this another of Gail Smith’s leaps into the unknown? Malley didn’t begin to guess. He did appreciate the only way to find out—until today—had been to put someone in a suit and drop them on a planet of Quill. Which was the part of Gail’s intentions he was quite sure Commander Grant knew and supported.

  Why was today different? Malley put his hands behind his head and looked at the dim outlines of the ceiling. Today, he’d confirmed for himself what else Gail Smith knew—or at least suspected.

  Somehow, the malady afflicting a young ’sider named Aaron Pardell had a great deal in common with the Quill.

  There was no doubt in his mind. A suit to protect against the Quill had protected him from Aaron. Malley wouldn’t be surprised at all to find it wasn’t just any genetic disguise she’d installed on her protective suit—it was Aaron’s.

  Knowledge that didn’t help anything, in Malley’s estimation. The glove hadn’t protected Aaron. Maybe the technology could be modified to do so, but helping his friend wasn’t a priority for the Earthers. If anything, this gave them the perfect way to control him. The bare rumor of a connection between Aaron and the shadowy menace of the Quill had produced a lynch mob. If the Earther scientists confirmed that connection—well, there wouldn’t be any safe place for Aaron, anywhere. And Gail Smith would use that weapon, if she had to . . . she’d do anything to keep Aaron.

  Because, Malley told himself numbly, now she had what humanity had been searching for, in vain, since the Quill stole their worlds.

  A test subject.

  Chapter 40

  “HOW much longer?” Gail looked up at Grant, startled out of her concentration on Rosalind’s efforts by his low-voiced question. “However long it takes,” she answered firmly.

  Techs Bennett and Wigg had linked a portable data recorder to the ’Mate’s antique console and were copying anything and everything Rosalind was coaxing from the ship’s surviving computers. They would sort it on the Seeker, where they had the equipment to rapidly scan through the decades of entries. But, on the ’Mate, the process could only move as fast as two things permitted: Rosalind’s artificial hands and the levels of encryption within the data storage.

  There was more than Gail had expected. The stationer who’d taken on the ship and the responsibility of raising its owner had not been a comp expert, but, according to Rosalind, he’d offered room and board to anyone who was—particularly in the early years, when Raner had been communicating with his uncle and other Earthers. He’d learned what he could, in order to protect his foster son’s past.

  And he hadn’t been the only one. Suddenly, the console flashed red and Rosalind flinched back. “What’s this?” she muttered, as if alone. “Another layer. Personal logs, family records. I’ve never seen . . . damn it.” The ’sider turned to stare at Gail, for the first time looking amazed. “These need a gene key.”

  Gail nodded at Tech Specialist Sensun, who came over to the console, a handful of standard key chips in her hand. “Which one first, Dr. Smith?”

  “Witts,” Gail said, feeling a deep, expectant breath filling her lungs—despite the used taste of the air. “Susan Witts.”

  Sensun reached past a suddenly motionless Rosalind to drop the chip into its slot. A perfect fit, as it should be. Without explaining why, Gail had made sure Grant’s people prepared a variety of gene keys, including those suited to an older ship like this one.

  The console’s red disappeared and its lights returned to their normal, about to fail, flickering. Access granted, Gail said to herself. She hadn’t doubted it would be.

  “Susan Witts.” Rosalind shook her head wonderingly, then narrowed her eyes in speculation. “And you knew, all this time. Why didn’t you tell me?” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “Why didn’t Aaron?”

  Somehow, Gail knew she referred to Raner, not Pardell. “He likely didn’t even know, Rosalind. How could he?” As for the younger version—the ship would have accepted his gene key, as owner and descendant. But had Pardell ever had one made? Would he have known to bother?

  Without conscious decision, Gail’s mind flashed through a sequence of Pardell’s face as she’d seen it for herself, as if searching for the answers. Curious and wary, in the bar; furious—at her—during the riot; slack and lifeless, in the lab.

  How much did he know of himself?

  Chapter 41

  HE hadn’t known himself.‘

  Pardell sat on the one chair this room offered and knew it was true.

  Freak didn’t begin to describe him.

  He knew Malley would throw a pillow at him—more than one or something more substantia1—while saying all the imminently practical, sensible things the stationer found defined his sense of right and wrong. Not that Malley was an amoral man. Far from it. But his conscience was definitely of the “what’s done, is done” variety.

  Pardell couldn’t afford that comfort, though he’d have given anything to have Malley near, pillow-tossing or not. A sharp-edged sword needed a scabbard. He had none, he thought, gripping his knees with his hand. He was dangerous simply by being.

  He was deadly.

  Malley would doubtless remind him that he’d almost died, too. Irrelevant. A bomb also ”died” as it killed. Did that make a bomb less a problem to have around? Less a threat to others? To friends?

  He was ashamed to feel relief only strangers had died; the joy of ignorance, doomed to end the moment word spread that so-and-so in Outward Five, or this ’sider, had lost an aunt, or a cousin, or a lover during the riot, and did anyone know what had happened? It was a large station—not a limitless one. Eventually, the chain of who-knew-who would link itself from death’s face to those with tears in their eyes and hate in their hearts as they looked at him.

  The bridge of the ’Mate wouldn’t be far enough.

  He’d hoped the Seeker would be his way to a better life. Now, Pardell told himself, cooperating with this Dr. Smith was his only chance to s
urvive.

  But it wasn’t Malley’s.

  Funny how the universe continually bent itself into the most inconvenient shape possible for all concerned. Pardell knew he could walk off this ship now. The locked door? No barrier—not with what was in the room for him to use. The guards? Grab a suit, find an air lock, and he could vanish Outside before the Earthers strapped on their fancy boots. His body? The scientist/ physician, Dr. Lynn, had insisted on an uncomfortably thorough physical—using remote handling arms—before letting him walk around. She’d found him in good health by any standard, let alone for someone who’d been brain-dead hours before.

  Pardell could leave—but he had nowhere else to go.

  Malley, on the other hand, had family, work, and friends waiting—every imaginable reason to leave the Seeker and none to stay. But Pardell was quite sure Gail Smith knew locked doors or guards weren’t what imprisoned the stationer on her ship. Pardell himself still found it incredible that Malley’d made it through the air lock and into the Seeker on his own.

  Which didn’t change things. Malley had to get off this ship and back home. If the Earthers wouldn’t help him—if Gail Smith wouldn’t make it possible because she had plans for the stationer as well—then it was up to him.

  Pardell had to smile at himself. Here he was, sitting in the near dark—once he’d found out the quarters belonged to someone, a woman named O’Shay, he’d been unable to bring himself to lie down on her bed—planning and plotting to outdo the Earthers with their uniforms and clean, shiny ship.

  No one could say he didn’t dream big.

  Chapter 42

  HER dreams had always been big—Sol-wide, her dad used to say fondly. Gail knew herself fortunate her parents had seen nothing wrong in the breadth of her ambitions even as a child. Perhaps they knew some problems required those who dreamed on a grand scale. Otherwise, she reminded herself, you failed to have the correct perspective.

  She judged Rosalind Fournier to be another such dreamer. The ’sider would hold Gail to her promise to either prove the existence of the Quill or provide safe passage for her companions’ ships into Sol System. Well enough. Gail wanted both.

  “We’re almost done, Commander,” Wigg announced. “Just a few more—what was that?”

  “That” was a jolt along the floor of the bridge. They all grabbed their helmets and dogged them tight, an automatic response, then Grant called to the FDs he’d left guarding the air lock, not bothering to keep it to private mode: “Cornell. Allyn. What’s going on down there?”

  Wigg and Bennett had returned to retrieving the data, packing filled cubes into the pockets running down each side of their suits as quickly as the machine disgorged them. Tellingly, Rosalind was on her feet, her face, lit from below, clearly startled. So this wasn’t part of her plan—a conclusion Grant must have reached on his own, since he had his back to the ’sider. The remaining FD, Sensun, pointedly did not.

  Another jolt, this time accompanied by a fluctuation in the gravity. Any objects jarred loose gained a trajectory only to crash back on the nearest surface almost immediately. Gail did as the others and turned on her mags to reinforce her grip on the floor.

  A voice in her ear made its report. “We’re trapped, Commander. It was necessary to secure the air lock from within. There’s a superior, organized force surrounding the ship.”

  Gail didn’t like the sound of any of that. “Is there another functional air lock other than the one below?” she asked Rosalind. “A backup—or emergency pod?”

  The ’sider had regained her composure and now seemed amused by Gail’s question. “Just the one. As for backups? Pods? Dual systems? Around here, those are commodities, Earther. Raner scrapped anything removable long ago.”

  Grant had switched to private mode—doubtless obtaining specific information from the two in the air lock as well as communicating with the rest of his unit on the Seeker. The jolts didn’t abate, but didn’t seem to further affect the gravity or power systems. Yet.

  She hated being useless.

  “Everything’s transferred, Dr. Smith,” Bennett reported, shutting down the machine they’d brought.

  “You’re sure?” Gail asked. “There’s nothing left in the system—nothing we could have missed.”

  Wigg’s voice was confident. “We have it all. Guaranteed.”

  Gail motioned to the console. “Then make sure we’re the only ones who do.”

  Wigg and Bennett began tearing the console apart, rapidly and methodically, collecting specific components in a pile on the floor. When they indicated they were done, Sensun pulled out a weapon that had nothing in common with the tranks the FD usually carried and fired at close range. The white-hot beam of energy melted the components into a glowing orelike lump.

  Rosalind had stood to one side, watching all of this, her body easily adjusting to the jolts now shivering through the floor every few seconds. Seen through the helmet, her face was impassive, almost detached.

  Gail could wear that expression at will and wasn’t fooled. Rosalind was furious. At the attack, or at what Gail had ordered? After all, they hadn’t just stolen Aaron Pardell’s past—they’d destroyed part of it.

  The gravity went again, long enough to make her stomach lurch in response. Luckily, the white-hot slag had welded itself to the floor and wasn’t going anywhere on its own.

  “Dr. Smith.” It was Grant, on private. Gail looked at the figure she assumed was him, getting a nod of confirmation. The suits restored the illusion that all the FDs were identical, especially as they’d switched off their interior lighting.

  “What’s our situation, Commander?”

  “I liked the odds on the docking ring better.”

  Impossible, Gail thought numbly, not now, when we’re so close . . . “Just as well I don’t gamble,” she told him, matching his cool tone. “Who’s out there?”

  “Who?” It wasn’t possible to shrug and be seen in a suit, but Grant’s voice managed to convey the same effect. “No way of telling—not by us. The stationers’ equipment is only marginally better than what we’ve seen on our friends here.” She knew he meant Rosalind. “Numbers? Uncertain or changing. Cornell estimated twenty-five swarming around and on the hull before he and Allyn ducked for cover. The three ’bots sent out by Seeker found another fifty to a hundred, then were destroyed. We’re down to relying on the shuttle’s vids until the shop preps more ’bots for vacuum. Tobo’s rotating to bring the Seeker’s highest gain lenses our way, but he can’t bring the ship any closer. Cornell did see a couple carrying homemade launchers. We don’t want them throwing anything at the Seeker.”

  Gail chinned her comm to open. “You’ve rigged this ship as one of your bombs, Rosalind. Do we have to worry about it going off if they keep this up?” A timely jolt underscored her words.

  Rosalind tapped her helmet. “Voice code activation. Mine or that of a colleague on—one—of our new ships. Otherwise, the matrix is harmless.”

  While Rosalind was not. Gail knew Grant got the message. She imagined his techs were already figuring out how to block such signals from reaching their destinations. Their job. There were more immediate problems.

  “Have you tried contacting whoever’s out there?” Grant’s answer was lost in a scream of metal as the floor abruptly shifted several degrees off horizontal. The mags kept them from sliding along with Bennett’s equipment and the appalling chair, but at the cost of having them all lurch off-balance. “What are they doing?” Gail demanded.

  Rosalind answered, her voice ice-cold and calm. “What they have done in the past. They are trying to rip the ’Mate loose from the station. First, they sever the holdfasts and cables. This is what we are feeling. Once those are gone, they will weld launchers to every reachable surface. Only then will they attempt to cut through the live umbilicals.

  “That’s when we usually lose most of the fools—and when we go out to defend ourselves.”

  She was reliving their wars, for wars they must have been, G
ail realized, her heart thudding heavily in her chest. So it had been battle damage as well as decay marring these ships. Gail could replay all she had seen and understand it now. The Aces Adrift hadn’t quietly succumbed to age or structural flaws—she’d been torn apart by stationers using launchers to try to pull her from the station.

  “If it’s Thromberg, we can talk to them. Grant, get a link through to Nateba—”

  Rosalind’s eyes had lost nothing of their power, shining fiercely in the reddish glow within her helmet. “You are dealing with Outward Five now,” she told them. “Station Admin has no control over them.”

  Gail knew someone who did. “Get Malley on the comm,” she ordered, managing to ignore the little voice in her head that knew how very much the stationer was going to enjoy this.

  Almost.

  Chapter 43

  IF Malley’d ever had a better start to his day, he couldn’t remember when.

  “So Gail wants to talk to me,” he repeated. “Right now. Can’t wait. Her Ladyship herself.

  “Yes, Mr. Malley. It’s urgent.”

  He leaned back against the pillows and contemplated the now-flushed face of the FD—Taggart, it was—holding out a handheld comm. “How urgent?”

  “Very—”

  There was a squawk from the comm he could almost decipher. “That urgent?” he surmised, smile widening.

  “Their lives are threatened, Mr. Malley,” Taggart said and practically threw the comm at Malley. “I’ll ask you to cooperate now, sir, or you’ll come with me to the bridge.” The man’s voice had developed a distinctly menacing edge.

  Malley cupped the device in one hand. The bridge? Where they doubtless had some obscenely large view of space on display? Not to mention passing through that hellish tunnel? “I’ll cooperate.”

  “Malley!”

  No mistaking that voice, even through what sounded like an inferior signal transfer—or the stationer decided for no reason, through some minimal attempts to jam the transmission. “The one and only, Gail. Miss me?”