by Sharon Lee
Startlement showed briefly in his eyes, hidden by an ironic seated bow. "My—"
"Rogue Captain Anjemalti Kristefyon!" demanded the comlink perched precariously atop the screen. Anjemalti grinned, though Corbinye could detect no humor in that snarling voice.
"You see what I put up with," he murmured and punched the button atop the link. "Now what?" he inquired of it.
"You will surrender to the Crew the bitch-Grounder in your keeping. You will place yourself and your servant into the custody of Acting Captain Faztherot. You will do these things immediately."
"Surely we've had this conversation?" Anjemalti said plaintively and Corbinye very barely stopped herself from laughing.
Their communicant was less amused. "You are a danger to yourself and to your Crew. It is clear that your Grounder genes have caused you to become demented. The Acting Captain will determine whether it is possible for you to comprehend honor and, if so, will aid you in its attainment. Your name will be written in the Captain's Roster and future Crews will respect your memory." There was a hesitation.
"No blame is attached to your infirmity. It is understood that this is the fault of Grounder genes. We are taught that Grounders are mad—and have seen ample evidence of this."
"So instead of blaming me for putting the Ship in danger, we'll blame my mother, who ignored wisdom," Anjemalti said, suddenly tart. "Very good. To whom am I speaking—Siprian?"
Another hesitation before a less assured, "Yes."
"Very good," he said again. "Siprian, how many children have you?"
"I—childre—? Well," she stammered into sense, "there is Veln. . .."
"Yes—only Veln? A woman your age, with your abilities and rank—surely you were allowed another child?"
"But she was born—twisted, Cap—Sir. Many of them are . . . Corbinye's was . . ." Silence.
Anjemalti cocked his head, as if he could see the woman on the other end of the link. "And how many playmates has Veln, to run with him through the back corridors and explore the ductways?"
"I—two, Cap—Sir. But Timin is lame and not much able in the ducts."
"So—"
"So," a new voice snapped over the link. "Will you surrender, Anjemalti Kristefyon, or will you force your Crew to rip you from your hiding hole?"
"Acting Captain Faztherot," said Anjemalti. "I was just discussing that with my staff. Perhaps we could come to an accommodation."
"Accommodation." Flatly unemotional.
"No dishonor attached to that, is there? You bargain with Grounders as a matter of course—or did, within my lifetime. Surely you recall the way of it?"
The comlink buzzed slightly, but from Mael Faztherot there was no reply.
"No?" said Anjemalti lightly. "Then I will refresh your memory. You provide something that I desire, in return for obtaining something you desire from me. For instance, in this case, you desire me to relinquish control of the life support systems of this vessel and to be gone—permanently. I, on the other hand, am also possessed of a desire to be gone, and find that the care of the life support system grows tedious."
"It would seem that our goals in this—accommodation—are remarkably alike," commented the comlink.
"Ah, you see that! Excellent. Then you will also see that it is to everyone's advantage for the Ship to relinquish Hyacinth in full working order so that I, my first mate and my . . . historian may leave. In return for this, I shall give over control of the life support system and promise never to return to the Ship. My crew will promise likewise."
"An accommodation with some charm to it," said the comlink and Corbinye sat up straight, voiceless in disbelief. "Let us consider whether it covers all points. For it is the Crew's right to dispose of the Grounder woman in—" Over the link's drone came a new sound, slight, quickly muffled, emanating from the ceiling.
"The ducts." Corbinye was on her feet in one smooth motion, chair falling backward with a thump as she grabbed his arm, her eyes tracking the sound across the ceiling. "Anjemalti, they are coming through the ducts."
Startlement flicked across his face, then he was up, sweeping the comlink to the floor, spinning to snatch up the Trident. "The Garden, quickly."
But they were there—a line of lean wolf-figures, just within the shadow of the perimeter trees. Anjemalti exhaled a curse.
"The hallway, I suppose?" He glanced down at Corbinye. "Or is there more honor in being trapped like a rat?"
"The hallway," she said, around the hammering of her heart. "They will be there, too, but we must to the open someway. If they drop gas cylinders . . ."
He looked up at the ceiling, noisy now, as if those who climbed knew their mission was discovered and only haste counted.
"The hallway," he agreed. "Now."
To her amazement, the door slid open to his hand. He stepped through first, and then she, and finally Witness, bearing a torch, his eyes glowing like river agates.
They got as far as the Engineering Corridor, three short halls from the Captain's Rooms. And they were met by no mere ragtag group of subCrew but by Mael Faztherot and Siprian Telshovet and Ardornel Clevryon and three of the mid-rank, all bearing arms. Three of those arms took sight on Anjemalti, who bowed, with no little irony.
"Acting Captain Faztherot. How nice to see you again."
"Rogue Captain Kristefyon. Surrender your weapon and you will be escorted back to your rooms."
"You are kind, ma'am, but in that case I would fear the fate of my companions."
She bowed formally. "Of course. And it is certainly right and honorable that you be allowed to cut the throat of your own servant. We are not barbarians." She flicked a glance at the guards. "Escort Rogue Captain Kristefyon and his servant to the Captain's suite."
Gem sighed. "An incomplete solution, ma'am—forgive me for saying so. The lady you do not acknowledge as Corbinye Faztherot is also my companion and I will not leave her to the mercies of your Crew. Who are barbarians."
Mael Faztherot paled under her tan. "As I told you before, Rogue Captain, that—"
"Is not my concern," he finished for her. "But I feel—most strongly—that it is—and you might just as well address me as Gem, or Master ser Edreth, you know. 'Rogue Captain' is neither accurate nor flattering."
"That is a Grounder name," Ardornel Clevryon said, flat-voiced with loathing.
"Indeed it is," Gem returned. "And a Grounder is what I am. A Grounder in a Crew body, which must be as blasphemous as one of the Crew wearing a Grounder body—no matter what duty forced upon her." He brought the Trident around and wrapped his hands about it, just behind the branching; leaned forward so that one tine lay against his cheek and looked into Mael Faztherot's eyes.
"What did you expect?" he asked her softly. "You cast me out. Made me dead to the Ship. Breathing dead, I was sold—to a Grounder, who cared for me and taught me; gave me a life and a name. Who shall I honor as my kin? Whose ways should I chose to follow? Is it sense to exalt the Crew that abandoned me, or to bide by the teaching of Edreth ser Janna, who named me son as he lay dying?"
"Son to a Grounder!" snarled Ardornel Clevryon.
Gem looked at him in mild, sarcastic, surprise. "Son to two Grounders, sir," he said sweetly. "Surely you were aboard Ship when I was born?"
It was too great an insult to be borne. Ardornel snatched at his sidearm, firing even as the Mael Faztherot's arm swept down to prevent the shot.
Corbinye leapt, all her thought to knock Anjemalti aside—and slammed into him, gasping as his arm came hard around her waist and she heard the pellet whine by one ear and strike something close by the other with a resounding clunk! and barely had time to understand that one of the guards had also fired, when the energy bolt struck the Trident, which fizzed blue for an instant and then subsided.
Anjemalti's arm loosened and she stepped back, staring at the pellet which was stuck fast to the Trident, just beside the largest ruby. There was silence in the hallway.
"FOOLS and CHILDREN of fools!" The voice r
everberated off the metal walls, the floor, the ceiling.
Corbinye craned to see the speaker, and froze in amaze as Witness stepped forward, both arms upraised, the glow from the torch making reddish halos around his head.
"Have you not read your own histories? Have you not meditated upon the prophecies of your Great Ones? There! Written in your own logs is the story, plain enough for a child to cipher—and you call yourselves hunters and made-men! Fools!"
Corbinye drew breath and looked around her, wondering which of them would draw first, and shoot Witness down. But all seemed transfixed, staring at the apparition of him.
"IS IT NOT WRITTEN," demanded the Witness, "that there shall return unto the Ship a Captain, who will lead the Crew back into greatness? Is it not written?"
Astonishingly, there was a mutter of assent from Ardornel.
"Yes," the Witness reiterated, "it IS written. Look about you, blind ones! Is this greatness? Your ship dies around you, backup systems are suspect, there is not sufficient energy for light and forward power both. EVEN THE GARDEN IS DYING! The garden is dying, blind ones, do you hear me? You, who were given the holy task of bringing the green things to the stars—you are failing."
He lowered his arms. "Event throws to you salvation, in the form of the Captain who was foretold—and you strive to kill him! You strive to slay his handmaiden, his partner in the war against event! And even then you behave as children, rather than honorable foes. What would have occurred, should either of those missiles gone wide of the mark?" He turned and pointed at the wall, which also served as the back of the Engineering computer.
"What lies behind this wall?"
There was a stillness among the Crew. Siprian's face was gray.
"You did not think," the Witness concluded, with great sadness. "Well for you, thoughtless ones, that Shlorba's Smiter saw fit to save this Ship, and ate both projectile and energy." He turned abruptly to face Anjemalti and swung his arms out and back, head swinging toward his knees in a sweeping, birdlike bow.
"All hail to Anjemalti the Seeker, Trident Bearer, Chief of the Bindalche, Foretold of the Crew! Best to heed him, and boldly walk in his footsteps, O you who have been blind! Follow him, and do his bidding—or die in the dark between the stars, with the stink of rotting leaves choking you."
"Oh," Anjemalti breathed. "Wonderful."
It was Mael Faztherot who moved first; who drew her weapon and held it in two hands. She stared into Anjemalti's face for what seemed a lifetime to Corbinye, tensed to throw herself into the bolt when it was fired.
But Mael Faztherot did not fire her gun. Instead she bent and laid it with her sorl-blade at Anjemalti's feet before going, awkwardly, to one knee.
"Captain," she said, voice rough with emotion. "Your Crew is ready to be led."
Chapter Fifty-One
That it held atmosphere proved both the existence of gods and their beneficence. That it sheltered life of any kind was an unlikelihood on the magnitude of miracle. That the life it sheltered still wore more-or-less standard human form and was only slightly insane was either benediction or curse.
Gem leaned carefully back in the rickety command chair and rubbed his eyes. His stomach growled and his back ached, unsubtle reminders of the hours he had spent hunched over the keyboards, forcing information from the ancient, unwilling MainComp.
He should go soon, he thought, half-muzzily. Corbinye would be worried.
He sighed. If only a quarter of the Crew wanted their new Captain dead and rendered to fertilizer, fully one hundred percent felt that fate should be meted immediately to the "Grounder-bitch." No one was sane on this issue, not even Siprian, whom he found in that state most often.
The sum of her vast unpopularity was that Corbinye must stay within the confines of the Captain's Rooms, which were spider-guarded and warded with other engines he and she had devised together. She monitored the construction of the Arachnids from there, which gave her purpose, but Gem could feel her raging frustration as if it were his own.
"Anjemalti," Witness said quietly. "One comes."
"Delightful," Gem returned and came abruptly to his feet, stretching high on his toes, fingers straining toward the metal ceiling. The annunciator sounded as he finished stretching and he snapped down the toggle that opened the door, at the same time laying his hand on the Trident and bringing it up.
The man who stood, hesitant, in the door was short, for Crew, thin even among his slender mates. His hair was more gray than blond; his face tanned into leather, with deep grooves around the eyes. His lips held a firm, straight line, and Gem thought it would take much to make him unseal them, and speak.
But speak he did, quietly, eyes as sane as Crew eyes ever were. "Captain?"
Gem nodded. "The same. And yourself? You're from Engineering?" Engineers were often tanned thus, he had learned—the damned, deteriorating shields. . ..
"No, sir—Atrium," the man said, taking no offense that he had not been recalled. "I'm Finchet. The Gardener."
"Ah." Gem nodded again and sank back into his seat, laying the Trident to hand. "Finchet the Gardener. Enter, please. No use letting the draft in." One of Edreth's phrases, meaningless here. But Finchet's firm mouth bent upward, just a trifle, as he stepped inside and the door slid closed behind him.
He stood at rest, hands clasped loosely behind his back, legs wide. Gem let the silence grow, until he felt Finchet had had sufficient opportunity for study, then he spoke.
"Is there something I can do for you?"
The man considered that, head tipped a little to one side. "Might be you can," he allowed eventually. "Heard from Nav you'd set us a course. Heard from—starwind—you was thoughtful of setting us down."
"Starwind, is it?" Gem considered the gardener gravely. "And you came to relate these rumors to me?"
"Nothing like," Finchet returned. "Figured you'd do as you would with rumor—ignore it, most like, and steer your course. Your mother's way. Uncle's way, too. You'll have noticed that."
"Indeed I have," Gem said. "Why did you come, then?"
Finchet jerked his chin at Witness, sitting quietly in the shadows. "Talk to him says the garden's dying. Never leaves you, so I come tin-side. Hate to. But he says the garden's dying and I'm Gardener. I got my charge. I read the Book. Garden don't die on me, begging Captain's grace. Figured man who can see death through all that green, when I can't, who's lived under leaf since weaning—figured that man might tell how to save it, or at least say what's gone wrong."
Clearly this was the longest speech Finchet had made in some time. He shifted a little, bracing his legs, and took a deep breath.
"Well . . ." Gem started, but—
"You have lost crops," Witness intoned, in his colorless, carrying voice. "Whole species have died out, over the years and years of your wanderings. It is written in the logs. Many no longer seed. Most are altered from what they were. These things are also written. As to the cause of the error . . ." He paused, looking off into the nothing, as he was wont, until Gem, who was accustomed to it, felt his nerves stretched to screaming.
But Finchet seemed entirely disposed to wait for as long as it took Witness to see his answer and return to convey it.
But when Witness finally did return, it was with a question.
"You have read the old logs?"
"Me?" Finchet seemed genuinely surprised. "Stars love you, man, I'm no Admin. I got the Book, and the notes from the ones before. There's truth in your saying—we've lost variety. But we was meant to lose some variety—or if not meant, it wasn't misexpected. Book says that plain. Old notes kept track of what died. If that's what you're on with, it's true, but not worrisome, see it? But you said the Garden was dying. Right now dying—and that's my concern, because I'm Gardener and it's my place to keep green, green."
"A joyous burden," said Witness gravely. "But you have information without perspective—event has seeded you with false complaisance. You feel that nothing shall alter, because nothing has altered. This i
s a trap. The Garden dies because it does not thrive. The Garden will continue to die until event has been altered."
Finchet frowned, and the silence stretched around him while he struggled to understand. Gem felt a flash of sympathy and was aware again of the passing of time. Corbinye would be—
"I don't doubt you spoke deep, friend. But I'm not Admin, or Tech. Just the Gardener. Might you could take some time from the Captain's side and walk in the green with me? Point out what's wrong. That's what I understand best."
Witness was silent with a finality Gem recognized. He stirred, stood. Finchet looked up, wariness showing on his face.
"No offense meant, Captain. Just trying to do—"
"Your duty," Gem finished gently. "As we all are. The Captain's Rooms overlook the Atrium. Is it possible that the two of you could survey things from the balcony there?"
"Try it, if he's willing," said Finchet without hesitation.
Witness bowed his head and rose. "I will do my best, Gardener. Anjemalti—"
"Yes." He fixed the man with a stern eye. "My rooms and the things or persons you find within my rooms are there by my desire and will. I'll brook no interference from you. Understood?"
Finchet nodded without surprise. "Understood."
"Good," said Gem. "Let's go."
* * *
There was reason to suspect the shielded line to the control room, and she misliked calling him where anyone might hear. The less the Crew were reminded of her existence, the longer she would live.
Not that she expected to live to see Spangiln System, much less the groundfall Anjemalti planned upon Bindal. But she intended to live as long as she could, and foolishly calling attention to herself was not consistent with that goal.
The best thing, she decided, was to deploy one of the completed Arachnids, thus reminding Anjemalti of the time at the same moment she reassured herself of his safety.
For the Captain was not safe from his crew, Corbinye thought, not for the first grim time. There were those who would have him dead in an instant—and Mael Faztherot, too, if she sought to protect him.