The Bloodwing Voyages

by Diane Duane

  In the morning she took things a step further. She called together t’Liun and tr’Khaell and the other senior officers and instructed them that they were to begin a complete check of all ship’s systems. Her officers, not caring for the prospect of trying to do several weeks’ work in the several days she was ordering, did their best to reassure Ael that the systems were in perfect working condition. Ael allowed herself, very briefly, to be mollified—thus setting up for a rage that even her worst old commanders would have approved of, when a message came in from Command later that day, and t’Liun’s communications board overloaded and blew up.

  Ael had been restraining herself the day before. Now she let loose, resurrecting some of the savagely elegant old idioms for incompetence that her father had used on her the day she forgot to fasten one of the gates of the farm, and three hundred of the hlai got out into the croplands. She raged, she flushed dark green-bronze (an inadvertent effect; she still blushed at the memory of that long-ago scolding, but the effect was fortuitous—it made the rage look better). She ordered the whole lot of them into the brig, then changed her mind: that was too good for them. They would all work their own shifts, as well as extra shifts doing the system analysis she had ordered in the first place. But none of them would touch the Elements-be-blessed communications board, which had probably been utterly destroyed by t’Liun’s fumblings. Who knew what orders Command had had for them, and must they now send messages back saying, “Sorry, we missed that one”? She would let t’Liun have that dubious pleasure, and served her right; but in the meantime someone had best bring her a tool kit, and the rest of them had best stay out of her sight and make themselves busy lest she space them all in their underwear, now get out!

  Afterward, when the bridge was quiet except for one poor antecenturion too cowed to look up or speak a word, Ael lay on her back under the overhang of the comm station and called silently on her father’s fourth name, laughing inside like a madwoman. Possibly I am mad, trying to make this work, she thought, first killing all power to the board so that none of the circuit-monitoring devices t’Liun had installed in it would work. But how then—should I lie here and do nothing? No, the thrai has a few bites left in her yet…. Ael gently teased one particular logic solid out of its crystal-grip, holding it as lovingly as a jewel. The equipment she had been brought naturally included a portable power source; this she attached both to the solid and to the board, bringing up only its programming functions.

  Reprogramming the logic solid, which held the ship’s ID, was delicate work, but not too difficult; and she thought kindly of her father all through it. Ael, he had said again, times will come when you won’t have time to run the program and see if it works. It must be right the first time, or lives will be lost, and the responsibility will be on your head when you face the Elements at last—probably long before that, too. Do it again. Get it right the first time. Or it’s the stables for you tomorrow….

  She sat up with the little keypad in her lap, touching numbers and words into it, and thinking about responsibility…of lives not merely lost, but about to be thrown away. Bitter, it is bitter. I am no killer…. Yet Command sent me here to be a prisoner; to rot, or preferably to die. What duty do I owe these fools? They’ve pledged me no loyalty; nor would they ever. They are my jailers, not my crew. Surely there’s nothing wrong in escaping from jail.

  Yet I swore the Oath, once upon a time, by the Elements and my honor, to be good mistress to my crews, and to lead them safely and well. Does that mean I must keep faith with them even if they do me villainy?…

  The thought of the Elements brought Ael no clear counsel. There was little surprise in that, out here in the cold of space, where Earth was far away, and water and air both frozen as hard as any stone. The only Element she commonly dealt with was Fire—in starfire and the matter-antimatter conflagration of her ship’s engines. Ael had always found that peculiarly agreeable, for she knew her own Element to be Fire’s companion, Air, and her realm what pierced it: weapons, words, wings. But even the thought of that old reassuring symmetry did nothing for her now. Loyalty, the best part of the ruling Passion, that’s of fire: if any spark of that fire were alive in them, I would serve it gladly. I would save them if I could. But there is none.

  Besides…there’s a larger question. She sat still on the floor of her bridge for a moment, seeing beyond it. There was the matter of the many lives that would be lost, both in the Empire and outside it, should the horrible thing a-birthing at Levaeri V research station come to term. Thousands of lives, millions; rebellion and war and devastation lashing through the Empire itself, then out among the Federation and the Klingons as well. For the Klingons she cared little; for the Federation she cared less—though that might be a function of having been at armed truce with them for all these years. Still—theirs were lives too.

  And beyond mere war and horror lay an issue even deeper. When honor dies—when trust is a useless thing—what use is life? And that was what threatened the spaces around, and the Empire itself, where honor had once been a virtue…but would be no more. Tasting the lack of it for herself, here and now, in this place where no one could be trusted or respected, Ael knew the bitterness of such a lack right down to its dregs. Even the knowledge of faith kept elsewhere, of Tafv on his way and her old crew coming for her, could not assuage it. She had led a sheltered life until now, despite wounds and desperate battles; this desolate tour of duty had dealt her a wound from which she would never recover. She could only make sure that others did not have to suffer it.

  She could only do so by sacrificing the crew of Cuirass to her strategem. There was too much chance that they would somehow get word back to Command of what was toward, if she left them alive. But by killing them, Ael would make herself guilty of the same treachery she so despised in them; and with far less excuse (if excuse existed), for she knew the old way of life, knew honor and upright dealing. There was no justifying the spilling of all her crew’s lives, despite their treachery to her. Ael would bear the weight of murder, and sooner or later pay their bloodprice in the most intimate possible coinage: her own pain. That was the way things worked, in the Elements’ world; fire well used, warmed; ill used, burned. All that remained was the question of whether she would accept the blame for their deaths willingly, or reject it, blind herself to her responsibility, and prolong the Elements’ retaliation.

  She remembered her father, standing unhappily over one of the hlai that Ael had not been able to catch. It had gotten into the woods, and there it lay on the leafmold, limp and torn; a hnoiyika had gotten it, torn its breast out and left the hlai there to bleed out its life, as hnoiyikar will. Ael had stared at the hlai in mixed fascination and horror as it lay there with insects crawling in and out of the torn places, out of mouth and eyes. She had never seen a dead thing before. “This is why one must be careful with life,” her father had said, in very controlled wrath. “Death is the most hateful thing. Don’t allow the destruction of what you can never restore.” And he had made her bury the hlai.

  She looked up and sighed, thinking what strange words those had seemed, coming from a warrior of her father’s stature. Now, at this late date, they started to make sense…and she laughed again, at herself this time, a silent, bitter breath. Standing on the threshold of many murders, she was finally beginning to understand….

  Evidently I am already beginning to pay the price, she thought. Very well. I accept the burden. And she turned her mind back to her work, burying her wretched crew in her heart while instructing the logic solid in its own treachery. First, she pulled another logic solid out of her pocket, connected to the first one and then to the little powerpack. It was a second’s work to copy the first solid’s contents onto the blank. Then, after the duplicate was pocketed again, some more work on the original solid. A touch here, a touch there, a program that would loop back on itself in this spot, refuse to respond in that one, do several different things at once over here, when Cuirass’s screens perceived the appr
opriate stimulus. And finally the whole adjustment locked away under a coded retrieval signal, so that t’Liun would notice nothing amiss, and analysis (if attempted) would reveal nothing.

  Done. She went back under the panel again, locked the logic solid back into its grip, and closed up the panel again, tidying up after herself with a light heart. No further orders would reach this panel from Command. It would receive them, automatically acknowledge them, and then dump them, without alerting the communications officer. It would do other things too—as her crew would discover, to its ruin.

  Ael got up and left the tool kit lying where it was for someone else to clean up—that would be in character for her present role, though it went against her instincts for tidiness. She swung on the poor terrified antecenturion minding the center seat, and instructed him to call t’Liun to the bridge; she herself was going to her quarters, and was not to be disturbed on peril of her extreme pleasure. Then out Ael stalked, making her way to her cabin. In the halls, the crewpeople she met avoided her eyes. Ael did not mind that at all.

  She settled down to wait.

  She did not have to wait long. She had rather been hoping that Tafv would for once discard honor and attack by ship’s night. But it was broad afternoon, the middle of dayshift, when her personal computer with the copied logic-solid attached to it began to read out a ship’s ID, over and over. She ripped the solid free of the computer and pocketed it, glanced once around her bare dark cabin. There was nothing here she needed. Slowly, not hurrying, she headed in the general direction of engineering. The engine room itself had the usual duty personnel, no more; she waved an uncaring salute to them and went on through to where Hsaaja stood. As the doors of the secondary deck closed behind her, the alarm sirens began their terrible screeching; someone on the bridge had visual contact with a ship in the area. Calmly, without looking back, Ael got into Hsaaja, sealed him up, brought up the power. It would be about now that they realized, up in the bridge, that their own screens were not working.

  “Khre’Riov t’Rllaillieu urru Oira!” the ship’s annunciator system cried in t’Liun’s voice, again and again. But Ael would never set foot on Cuirass’s bridge again; and the cry grew fainter and fainter, vanishing at last with the last of the landing bay’s exhausted air. Ael lifted Hsaaja up on his underjets, nudged him toward the opening doors of the bay, the doors that no bridge override could affect now. Then out into space, hard downward and to the rear, where an unmodified warbird could not fire. Cuirass shuddered above Ael to light phaser fire against which the ship could not protect herself. Space writhed and rippled around Cuirass; she submerged into otherspace, went into warp, fled away.

  Ael looked up with angry joy at the second warbird homing in on her, its landing bay open for her. She kicked Hsaaja’s ion-drivers in, arrowing toward home, and security, and war.

  Chapter Six

  “How’s the focus, Jerry?”

  “Mmm—can’t see any difference. Here, change places with me.”

  They were the first words Jim heard that morning as he passed through recreation in search of a cup of coffee and Harb Tanzer, the rec chief; but Jim forgot the search for a moment and paused in the middle of the room. The place was as busy as always—the gamma workshift had gone off duty some six hours before, but was still playing hard; and delta shift would start tickling in shortly, as soon as alpha relieved them. Jim was alpha shift right now, all the department heads of the various ships in the task force having gone over to that schedule to make meetings and communications easier. That was why he was slightly surprised to find Uhura, apparently long awake and sprightly, stretched out more or less under the control console for the holography stage and tinkering with its innards. Standing over the console was Lieutenant Freeman from life sciences, making swift adjustments and scowling at the results.

  “How’s that?”

  “Uh-uh. Come on, Nyota, let me do it.”

  “Heading up to the bridge?” said a voice by his shoulder. Jim turned around. There was Harb Tanzer, holding two cups of coffee, one of which he offered to Jim.

  “Do you read minds?” Jim said, taking a careful sip.

  “No, I leave that to Spock.” Harb grinned. “Vulcans might think it was an infringement on their prerogatives. Or I’d probably get in trouble with their unions or something. Do Vulcans have unions?”

  “Only by mail,” Jim said, and took another drink of coffee, watching with satisfaction as Harb spluttered into his. “What’re these two up to?”

  “I was about to come find out myself; they’ve been in here since the middle of delta. Uhura’s up early, and it has to be the middle of the night for Freeman….”

  “It can wait. I was looking for you. You’re up early, too, now that I think of it.”

  “Talking to the computer, that’s all. Checking out the crew efficiency levels.”

  “You do read minds.”

  “No, just my job description.”

  “How are they?”

  Harb actually shrugged. “They’re fine, Captain. Reaction time to orders is excellent—very crisp. The crew as a whole is calm, assured—very unworried. They trust you to bring them through this without any major problems.”

  “I wish I had their confidence in me.”

  “You should.”

  “So McCoy tells me…”

  “Yes, I saw that game. Jim, the computer’s analysis shows no department aboard this ship exhibiting signs of an anxiety level higher than plus-one. It’s the unknown that frightens people. This is just Romulans.”

  “‘Just…’” Jim gazed over at Freeman, who was now lying under the console, and Uhura, who was adjusting the controls on top. “Oh, well. How are the other ships?”

  “Constellation’s fine. Randy Cross, the rec officer over there, tells me they’re about on a par with us—plus-ones and an occasional plus-one point five. By the way, why do they call Captain Walsh ‘Mike the Greek’? I thought he was Irish or something.”

  “Reference to an old Earth legend, I think. The Greek either invented democracy or handicapping, I can’t remember which.” Harb snorted into his coffee again. “But do a little discreet snooping for me and see if there’s a betting pool going on over there.”

  “Certainly, Captain. Want a little action?”

  “Mr. Tanzer! Are you accusing me of being a gambler?”

  “Oh, never, sir.”

  “Good—I think. What about the Vulcans?”

  “Well, Intrepid doesn’t have a recreation department per se, though they have the same sort of rec room as we have. Recreation’s handled out of medicine, and gets prescribed if someone needs it. But Sobek tells me that no one does. They’re all running the usual Vulcan equivalency levels, plus-point five or so. Inaieu, though—”

  “I bet they’re having a good time over there. They love trouble.”

  “Plus-point fives and point sevens, right across the board.”

  Jim glanced at Harb in concern. “That’s too good a time.”

  “Not for Denebians. The Deirr are the most nervous, generally. But they’re not very worried either.”

  Jim gave silent thanks that Rihaul was a Deirr; nervous captains tended to be better at keeping their crews alive. “Something should be done to harness levels like those, nevertheless. I’ll talk to Rihaul. Anyway, you’ve answered all the questions I had for you.” Jim glanced up at the wall chrono. “About ten minutes, yet. No harm in being early…” He trailed off. “What are they doing?”

  “Okay, try it now,” Freeman’s voice said, slightly muffled since his head and shoulders were up inside the console. “That first tape.”

  Uhura picked a tape up from the console, inserted it and hit one of the console’s controls. Immediately the holography stage lit up with the figure of a seated man, with another man beside him. They both looked bitter. “I coulda been somebody!” the first man said angrily. “I coulda been a contenda!”

  “No, the other one,” Freeman’s voice said from inside the mach
inery. Uhura pulled the tape, and the two men vanished.

  Realization dawned. “Harb,” Jim said, “this is the crewman who’s been rechanneling all that archival stuff and showing it on ship’s channels in the evenings? I thought he was in life sciences.”

  “Xenobiology,” Harb said. “This is his hobby, though. It’s useful enough. The data have been digitized and available for flat display for years, but no one’s cared enough about a lot of this material to rechannel it for 3-D and ambient sound. Freeman, though, loves everything as long as it was made before 2200. It took him about three months to get the image-processing program running right, but since it’s been up he’s enlarged the entertainment-holo library by about ten percent. He mentioned to me yesterday that he wanted to do some fine-tuning on the program so he could rechannel some of the old Vulcan dramas and send them over to Intrepid.”

  Jim stepped closer to the console, followed by Harb, and stood there watching the proceedings along with several other curious crewpeople. “Captain,” one of them said to him, knotting several tentacles in a gesture of respect. “Well rested?”

  “Very well, Mr. Athendë,” Jim said absently. “How’s Lieutenant Sjveda’s music appreciation seminar coming along?”

  “Classical period still, sir. Beethoven, Stravinsky, Vaughan Williams, Barber, Lennon, Devo. Head hurts.”

  “Bet it does,” Jim said, wondering where the Sulamid, who seemed to be nothing but a tangle of tentacles and a sheaf of stalked eyes, might consider his head to be. “Not overdo it, Mr. Athendë. Take in small doses.”