In the Company of Others

by Julie E. Czerneda

  But Gail knew she was the only person who could end this.

  Susan hadn’t killed all of the occupants of the second ship to violate her world. A small mercy there. Some older ones had survived. Gail knew exactly how they were feeling at the moment. A fascinating topic for future study, she thought furiously. The relationship between emotional capacity and an increased risk of death due to abject stupidity.

  Not that she would do the study herself.

  Now that she was in position and knew what to do, Gail found herself unable to do more than run her fingers along the comm controls.

  Grief. If Aaron’s had been terrible to see, Susan’s had been worse. The Quill had snapped every blade of grass at the base, until the hillside was bare of anything taller than Gail, Aaron, and the drop pod. Waves of similar destruction had spread down the hillside like clawing fingers, stopping short of the two islands of scorched earth and silent ships.

  Aaron had tried to find words for her reaction, but was almost incoherent between his own emotion and the Quill’s. The Susan-Quill, he’d told her, perceived herself as harmless, inconspicuous, a benefit to the world. What was happening—was unacceptable.

  As it had been to Susan Witts, Gail thought. She rubbed her eyes, remembering.

  She’d ordered away the ’bot, saying it upset Susan-Quill to be watched. Then she’d used all her skills to lead the way. Perhaps Aaron hadn’t seen where she wanted to go; perhaps Malley would have. Regardless, with more care and deliberation than Gail had ever used to bring a difficult committee around to her way of thinking, into making the key decision for her—as if they’d had a choice once she’d decided—she walked the Susan-Quill down the path she had already seen.

  The last step couldn’t be hers. Gail had talked herself hoarse, Aaron had worn himself to the point where he’d pass out every so often, until Gail woke him. They’d forced their way around and through concepts until Gail wasn’t sure whether she always used words or sometimes simply felt things for Aaron to translate.

  And now, Gail sat in front of the comm with a message to be written. Eyes only. She knew who to send it to—and what had to be done. It wasn’t going to be easy.

  But, in the end, it had been Susan-Quill who had taken that final step into understanding. And decided.

  Anguish. She could no longer bear to kill. She would not.

  Longing. She could no longer bear to be alone.

  And would not.

  “Done?”

  “Done,” Gail affirmed, wrapping herself in a blanket and working her body into the chair. With the grass flattened, the wind had nothing to slow it down. Now it bit any exposed flesh. “It’s up to them, now,” she sighed. No sign of Bob yet—the FDs must still be checking on the other ship.

  Another mercy, after all. The first rounders had come prepared. Gail had watched in astonishment as the Mississauga offloaded a cargo of prefab shelters and even earth-moving equipment, the would-be colonists moving with sure speed to produce what by now amounted to a real, if tiny, settlement. When she’d questioned how they’d kept these supplies from being used by the station, Aaron had simply remarked that he’d heard Station Admin had tried—only once—to expropriate the colonists’ equipment from the storage bays. Besides, how useful would any of it have been?

  Until now. Now, it not only offered the passengers of the Mississauga essential shelter and the real potential for survival, but they’d gone to their new neighbor, the Clarkson, and brought the survivors back to join them.

  Gail was glad she couldn’t see the line of fresh graves.

  “How is Susan?” she asked.

  “Frightened. Determined. She’s asking me about ...” his voice failed and she looked up at him.

  “What does she want to know, Aaron?”

  He shook his head in wonder. “Everything. The more time I’m like this—part of her—the easier it becomes to transfer ideas and information. She wants to learn whatever she can. More than I can teach her. Even though she knows it won’t last. ...”

  “You’ve been a good friend,” she offered softly. Aaron stood there, as he’d stood all this time, hardly seeming real anymore unless she was the target of his eyes. Then, she thought, he was everything, and the only thing, real. “I don’t know what kind of music you like,” Gail said, oddly alarmed. She sat upright again. “What do you like to read? What do you—” she stopped, feeling silly.

  He smiled down at her. “I like anything played with heart and joy. I read everything I can find—which isn’t much, I’m afraid.”

  Gail smiled back, suddenly shy. “I have a library at home—on Earth, not Titan. It’s filled with books. My family’s. My own.”

  “Books—as in paper?” His eyes widened. “I didn’t think they still existed.”

  “Yes. Convenient on Earth, where paper can be grown—it’s the transport cost that made them a problem for spacers. I would think the new worlds ...” She couldn’t say anymore.

  Aaron finished for her: “. . . the new worlds will probably have their own books, soon enough.”

  “Soon enough.” Gail looked into his eyes and felt her own filling with tears. “Aaron—of everything—I don’t regret us,” she said fiercely. “You know that, don’t you? Not for an instant.”

  His voice was like his face, expressive, changing in flashes. Now it was richer than usual, more resonant. She could feel it. “I know,” he said. “And I won’t deny I’m glad you’re here, instead of safely up on your fancy new ship. Selfish of me, isn’t it?”

  “Safe?” She made a rude noise. “If I’d wanted safe, I’d have stayed in the library.”

  Aaron nodded slowly, as if he knew what she couldn’t bring herself to say—not and be able to endure this. Gail didn’t doubt he was braver—braver than anyone she’d known or could imagine.

  “Think you could stay awake and watch the stars with me tonight, wife?” he asked.

  “You need your rest,” she told him.

  “Perhaps,” he drew in a long breath, tilting his head back to scan the sky, then looked down at her, eyes aglow. “But every minute with you is—it’s like the first minute of my being alive and not just waiting for life. I don’t want to miss even one.”

  Gail pressed her fingers to her lips for a long moment, then lifted the kiss to him. “Then you won’t, husband,” she promised.

  She refused to calculate how many minutes they had left.

  Chapter 97

  MALLEY smiled. This should only take a minute.

  He could see his own reflection in the glossy door between the two FDs. Definitely the smile that made Sammie nervous and Aaron pick up the nearest blunt object.

  “Evening, gentlemen,” he said happily. The pair looked at one another, then back at Malley. Doubtless they knew he wasn’t supposed to be here; likely they knew he was incapable of entering the now fully-reconnected waist.

  A shame they didn’t know the most important thing about Mrs. Malley’s youngest, the stationer chuckled to himself, as the FDs gave him identical surprised looks and slid to the floor. He pulled the trank from what remained of his pocket.

  He didn’t fight fair.

  It was ship’s night—combined with the continued restriction of the science staff to quarters, it made for conveniently empty halls. Of course, this critical entryway would be on vid. Malley smiled congenially at the likely corners of the ceiling. But he should have time at this end. The other? Well, he’d deal with that problem once through the waist.

  And he’d deal with the waist, once he made his way through the door. All of which, he thought morosely, would have been unnecessary if Grant was answering the comm.

  The impregnable door. Malley wondered if Gail appreciated the level of enthusiastic anarchy among her science staff. Then again, he thought with a grin, she’d picked them. Suffice it to say he’d had his choice of methods to deal with the locking mechanism—most involving loud noise and significant releases of energy.

  The stationer helped himse
lf to the FDs’ weapons—finally, something a bit more motivating than the tranks—then pulled their unconscious bodies down the corridor, arranging them so they’d form an obstacle to anyone trying to charge him. But, just as he began fastening his favorite destructive device to the side of the door, the lights began flashing to indicate it was being opened from the other side.

  Why do the dirty work when someone else will do it for you? Malley’s grin turned wolfish. He crouched out of the direct line of sight, but well in range, trank in one hand, what looked to be a very new energy-projectile pistol in the other.

  The door opened, but no one stepped through.

  “Malley?” A hiss, not a demand. Grant’s voice.

  Malley made sure both weapons were ready to fire, and waited.

  “Damn it, Malley, I’ve no time for this!” A more typical snap, but again, very quietly.

  “Then come through the door, Earther,” Malley suggested cheerfully.

  Ready as he was, Grant’s rolling dive through the door almost surprised him—almost, because if it had, Malley would have shot the man. But he had time as they froze, weapons aimed at one another, to see that Grant was not only out of uniform, he was wearing one of the blue anti-Quill suits.

  Grant, lying on the floor, lowered his weapon first. He held out his hand for a lift.

  Malley took it, heaving the Earther to his feet in one motion. “I take it this isn’t quite official,” he said.

  Grant put a finger over his lips, then turned to close the door behind him before coming back to stand in front of Malley.

  Then Grant tapped the side of his head, once, very lightly. There was a world of meaning in his dark eyes.

  Smile turning to a baring of teeth, Malley took out one of his knives, the small, sharp one from the science lab. It wasn’t sterile, but he figured infection was tomorrow’s problem.

  Obviously Grant, like he, knew they had other things to worry about.

  When it was done, Grant smashed the tiny, blood-soaked device under his heel. The wound had already soaked through the makeshift bandage they’d wrapped around his head, with a runnel of blood starting its way down his cheek, but Malley judged it would stop soon. Slices on the face tended to make a short-lived mess.

  Malley didn’t comment on the existing scar on Grant’s face—obviously the man had his own issues with authority.

  “Thanks. Buys some time from the Payette,” Grant said shortly as he led the way to the lab at a trot. “We’re still monitored by the Seeker’s vids.” He’d passed his unconscious guards with a look of complete disapproval—at them, the stationer noticed, not him. “But my people—the ones who understand the situation—they’ll turn a blind eye. So will Captain Tobo and his crew. Our problem will come when we get to the Payette’s pod. She’s got crew who won’t appreciate what we’re doing.”

  “Which is?”

  A dark glance. “Less said is still better.”

  Malley could make a reasonable guess involving illegalities and taking matters into one’s own hands—things of which he approved in general terms. He wouldn’t have minded details, especially given the suit Grant was wearing. The Earther likely had the headgear and gloves in the bag strapped to his back. “There’s only one of those,” he ventured, keeping up the pace easily.

  Grant grunted. “That’s all I need.”

  Malley hoped his relief wasn’t obvious. He was managing—barely—not to shake with the aftermath of having steeled himself to enter the waist, with its horrifying exposure to space.

  They turned the corner to reach the main entrance to the lab. Two FDs Malley knew quite well, Cornell and Loran, stood at attention to either side. As he and Grant approached, Loran swiveled without speaking to open the lab door. A sled came wheeling out, the hands that pushed it letting go as the FD took the near end, as though the person within tried to avoid being caught on the hall vids.

  Grant didn’t hesitate, walking boldly past as though there was nothing unusual in his appearance or Malley being armed with FD issue. He motioned to Malley to take the sled.

  Cornell and Loran didn’t react at all, staring straight ahead as though their commander and his companion were invisible.

  Once out of earshot, Malley observed dryly: “Handy, that.”

  “Best scenario,” Grant said in a bitterly proud voice, “we’ll all be retiring a little sooner than expected. If things go badly—and they probably will—court-martial . . . treason . . . The reaction of our superiors will depend on the public mood of the moment.”

  “Then why risk it?”

  Malley thought Grant looked faintly insulted by the question. “We’ve been on Thromberg,” he answered, as if that should be enough.

  Perhaps it was, the stationer decided, finding another of his preconceptions about Earthers—and this man—falling short of the truth.

  Grant led the way down a corridor Malley hadn’t explored yet, knowing it only led to the freight air locks and other places too close to the dark of space for his comfort. There was access to the freight area from the science lab, but he didn’t need to ask to know Grant wanted to stay well away from innocent bystanders.

  The sled was heavy, despite carrying only a box Malley could wrap his arms around easily. Box? He’d given it one quick look. It was a version of the stasis boxes used to transport the Quill. From the lights on the side, it was in operation.

  Even if he’d had questions for Grant, they reached the door to the freight hold before he could ask them. Unguarded, Malley noticed. Surely it should have been—he suspected Grant’s people had conveniently forgotten to appear for duty.

  “Put the hardware away,” Grant ordered, stopping just short to study the big stationer. “We’ll go in as though I’ve apprehended you trying to break through the door. You were planning to steal the pod and run off with that—” A nod to the box. “Should get their attention.”

  “Why don’t I really break through the door?” Malley offered reasonably. “Add some authenticity.”

  The commander snorted. “They’d shoot you before I could. We do it my way. And Malley—just tranks.”

  “You promising they’ll play by the same rules?” the stationer complained, but tucked his weapons into their hiding places. He’d like to have kept his hand on at least one, but Grant shook his head.

  “Hands on the sled, in plain sight. You’re scary enough, without giving them an excuse. As for the tranks—these are FD troops,” Grant said, taking hold of Malley’s shoulder and starting to push him toward the door. “It’s tranks only around civilians.”

  The stationer was aggrieved. “That’s not what the two at the waist had.”

  Grant chuckled low in his throat. “Oh, they were supposed to guard against you, Malley.”

  Compliment or threat? As Grant hit the door controls and propelled him forward into the cavernous freight hold, Malley decided it was likely both.

  “What—?” “Commander Grant—” Words overlapped as the guards inside leaped to their feet. They’d been sitting around a table covered in food trays—no coincidence, Malley thought admiringly.

  “Who’s in charge of this detail?” Grant’s snap made Malley’s back want to straighten. He resisted, doing his best to look contrite, embarrassed, and, above all, harmless—not being at all happy to see Grant had been wrong and these four had the lethal-variety handarm at their sides. That didn’t appear to perturb Grant, who was giving a very credible impression of an officer looking to assign blame. And lots of it.

  “Ops Specialist Pimm, sir.” This from the nearest woman, with a nervous glance toward the back of the hold where an air lock door gaped open. All four, two men and two women, stood at attention. They wore the same uniform as the Seeker’s unit, and, like them, were physically matched to uncanny perfection. There, any similarity ended. The Payette’s FDs were extremely pale-skinned, with almost white hair, shorter by almost a hand’s width than Grant and more heavily built. All had light blue eyes.

  Light
blue and very suspicious eyes that appeared to find him particularly alarming. Malley smiled peacefully, while tensing every muscle to leap out of range. Did Grant notice? This wasn’t going to work for long.

  It worked for exactly one more heartbeat. Then, before the stationer could do more than start to flinch, Grant had shot two of the FDs with tranks, sending the others scrambling for cover. “Move it!” he shouted to Malley as he dashed for the air lock.

  No guesses why he was along, Malley thought, ducking down to use the sled and box for cover while pushing it after Grant as quickly as he could.

  He took quick peeks over the top to see what was happening. Grant had his back to the open air lock, facing toward him, waving him on. The Earther shot again and Malley heard a thump as a third FD went down somewhere behind him.

  Almost there.

  A snap-whip of a sound. A scorch mark appeared on the wall beside Grant—warning shot, Malley judged it and drove his legs even faster. The sled smashed into the side of the pod and he turned, weapon in hand, to face what might be coming at them.

  “No.” Grant fired again. “Get the box inside. Hurry!”

  Malley hesitated, trying to see where the remaining guard was hiding among the piles of packing crates and sleds.

  “Now!”

  The stationer growled something about the stupidity of Earthers, then shoved his weapon into its pocket before whirling to grab the box. He grunted at the weight of the thing, but quickly readjusted his grip and heaved it up against his chest. The effort kept his mind from the air lock, which resembled a giant version of those from his nightmares. Two steps, up the ramp, over the sill—with every move, Malley expected a shot in the back. When none came, he presumed the box was more valuable than he was.

  It had better not be fragile, then, he thought grimly as he hurled it at the figure emerging from the interior of the Payette’s drop pod. The man gave an “oof” as the box connected with his chest, both dropping to the deck with a nicely solid thud.

  Another snap-whip from outside, this time punctuated by a wordless cry of pain. Malley spun around, weapons in both hands and headed for the freight hold.