Children of Hope

by David Feintuch

  Not yet, Randy. Time for that later.

  Lunchtime came and went. I might have been hungry, decided it didn’t matter. After a while the warm leather seat became unbearable. I walked, but the corridors were excruciatingly empty, sublimely boring. None of the portholes had seats where a joey could scan verses in his holovid when he grew weary of staring into space.

  Back to the comm room. I rubbed the ache in my spine, and stared endlessly at the holoscreen.

  Alarms chimed. I snapped awake.

  More fish were Fusing in.

  Dozens.

  Hundreds.

  More than a few joined the flotilla around the Station. Others floated toward Olympiad.

  Outriders flowed back and forth.

  The comm room came alive with traffic. Olympiad calling the Manse, personal for Stadholder Branstead. Station to Olympiad. Venturas Base to Station. Chris Dakko to Colonel Kaminski, on open circuit: “Do you think, if we gave them the salt …?”

  “No point. With Seafort dead, the treaty’s a board of blown chips.”

  “Is he … have they …”

  “No body yet. We’re keeping watch. Christ, the boy’s probably listen—” The line went dead.

  An hour later, Olympiad sailed toward Fusion safety. On the screen, her lights slowly receded until they were as dim as the uncaring stars. The fish, left behind, returned to the flotilla. I marveled that they hadn’t gone for her tubes. Was it a sign of hope?

  Minutes were eons, hours beyond the scope of comprehension. I walked. I slumped in chairs and jerked awake at the slightest sound.

  “Come along, Randy.”

  I peered sleepily. Tommy Yost.

  “I’ll take you to your cabin.” He overrode my protest, guided me along the corridor.

  Fath deserved more than he’d had. A monument, a grave, as future generations might contemplate the man who nearly saved them from themselves.

  The fish, our enemy, would never give him back. Not for the asking.

  Abruptly I dug in my heels. “No. Somewhere else.” What I contemplated made my stomach queasy. Mik. Corrine. Janey. They, at least, would appreciate what I would do.

  Yost was waiting. “Where, Randy?”

  I told him.

  “I can’t.” He glanced about, though we were alone, and spoke softly.

  I said, “Please.”

  “The Admiral will have my … this is dismissal, joey.”

  “This is Nicholas Ewing Seafort.” I held his gaze. Fath. The man who’d discovered the fish, fought them, served as Commandant of Academy, cleared the starlanes of fish at terrible cost to humans and aliens alike. The SecGen. The man who …

  I had no need to say it. Tommy knew.

  A sigh. “Scanlen was insufferable, but I never meant to forfeit my career.” He poked me. “Let’s go.”

  I led him to the machine shop. Yost signed out an etching tool, and a couple of scrap sheets of alumalloy. I thought his excuse was weak, that he wanted to practice pictographs with me just in case … but he was an officer. People saw him as adult. I was but a joeykid.

  Yost watched me write out the message. “You understand that folderol?”

  I snorted. “Understand? I invented it.” For a moment, a glow of pride. Then I recalled why the plate was before us.

  I handed him the tool. “Better return it, before someone comes looking.”

  “While I’m below, locate a gig.”

  The Station moored a handful of gigs, Tommy had told me, small craft seating six at most. It even had a launch of its own. And shuttles, of course, when they weren’t groundside.

  The problem wasn’t the craft. Nobody bothered to lock a gig; where would one go with it? Ships called only twice a year, and only the shuttles could traverse Hope Nation’s atmosphere. Besides, locked craft would be useless for emergency evacuations.

  But the Station was at a high state of alert, thanks to the menacing fish. We couldn’t just stroll through the lock, could we? Alarms would sound. Nervous techs would train their lasers. My shirt grew damp.

  “Ready.”

  I jumped.

  Tommy frowned. “Where?”

  I blushed. “I didn’t look.”

  Lugging the plate, I let him take me on an absurd stroll through the Station, glancing out portholes. We found three possible craft.

  I whispered, “Would they be fueled?”

  “I can’t imagine why not.”

  We settled on a gig at a Level 2 lock. There weren’t any service posts near—Comm Room, dining hall, or the like—and the corridor was, for the most part, deserted.

  Yost peered into a nearby suit locker. “No thrustersuits.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I won’t really need one.”

  He said, “I might, if they eat the gig.”

  Before putting on his helmet, Tommy awkwardly got down on his knees. He closed his eyes, and his lips moved.

  I waited.

  “Amen.” He struggled to his feet.

  “What did you ask for?” A stupid question, born only of curiosity. It was none of my business.

  His ears went red. “Courage.”

  Christ, what was I doing? “You don’t have to go.”

  “You can’t steer a—”

  I said, “We’ll call it off.”

  “For my sake?”

  I nodded.

  A long exhalation. “Thanks. But …” He handed me my suit. “I’m tired of comparing myself to you and Ghent.”

  I worked my way into the suit.

  I’ll say one thing for my prosth: thanks to the nerve grafts, I had nothing to learn. I just used my hand as if it were my own. It looked weird enough, but it sure beat climbing into a suit one-handed.

  I sighed. Maybe Fath had been right.

  In the end, it was as simple as cycling through the lock. The gig was waiting, and powered up without a hitch. A tiny craft indeed, it had a small lock, six seats divided by a narrow aisle, and a control panel for the pilot. No cockpit. No head.

  Tommy strapped himself in, began breakaway.

  A clean getaway.

  But the moment I clicked on my radio …

  “Randy, what are you doing?” Kaminski himself. His tone held no anger, only worry.

  “Going out, sir. We’ll be back in a few minutes.” At any rate, Tommy would.

  “I promised Mr Seafort!” Anguish. “Come back, joey. Please!”

  “On his behalf, I absolve you.” I giggled. “I suppose I’m his heir.”

  “Son …” Perhaps he forgot that he wasn’t to call me that. “You’ll get us killed if you rile the fish.”

  “That’s the last thing I intend.” For a moment I switched off the radio. “Hurry, Tommy, before they think of something.”

  “We’re clear. I’m trying not to damage the Station.” Slowly, we glided away.

  “Easy, Tommy, it’s that close one. No need to—”

  “I know.” Already he was braking. I keyed the suit radio.

  “Why, Randy? What’s the purpose?”

  “To retrieve Fath.”

  Tommy took me as near to the fish as he dared.

  I swam to the lock, gripped a stanchion at the outer hatch, grateful for my working left arm. “Open, please.”

  I gave the plate a last look: “Trade one-arm human / dead big-human.”

  It was all I had that they might want.

  Carefully, I released the plate, tapped it gently. It floated toward the fish. Surely they’d sense it, take it in. “Tommy, the moment I’m gone, sail the gig as fast as you—”

  A membrane swirled. An outrider emerged, clung to the skin. The plate bumped it. An appendage shot out, snagged it.

  Protoplasm rippled across the plate, read it, wiped it clean.

  “Oh, no!”

  The outrider launched itself. Straight for the gig.

  I formed words: Tommy, go! But I said nothing. Heart thumping against my suit, I braced myself in the hatchway. At the last minute, I had the sense to duck a
side.

  “Laser room, prepare to fire on—”

  I blurted, “Wait, sir!”

  The outrider sailed past me, came to rest against the inner hatch. It quivered.

  I waited for oblivion. At length, wondering, I turned my head.

  Outside the fish, another outrider, absurdly large. No, it was wrapped about …

  A suit. An ancient suit. The holos hadn’t shown that style in years. Decades.

  “Not Philip Tyre, I beg you. I couldn’t stand it.” Foul bile flooded my throat.

  “What, Randy?” Yost.

  Desperately, I swallowed. “Nothing.”

  The outrider oozed off the suit, launched himself and it. Together, they floated to our lock.

  The first outrider loomed over me. It exuded my plate.

  A sizzle.

  After a time, it abandoned the plate, reconstituted itself at the hatch, quivered once, and launched itself home.

  The second outrider propelled the suit toward our inner lock.

  I didn’t dare cycle, not with him aboard. I could risk myself, but Tommy …

  I peered at the plate.

  A long message.

  SALT IN HUMANS. SALT IN OUTRIDER. NO-WAR HUMAN / OUTRIDER.

  I blinked. “What the fu—” I stopped myself at the last moment.

  The outrider extended an appendage. Gray.

  It touched my suit.

  Not knowing why, I seized it, brought it to my helmet, kissed it through the bubble.

  A moment of stillness.

  With shocking speed the outrider moved to the hatch, launched itself, and was gone.

  Mechanically, I cycled.

  SALT IN HUMANS. SALT IN OUTRIDER. NO-WAR HUMAN / OUTRIDER.

  It was almost familiar. What could it …

  I rubbed my eyes. I was exhausted. If I hadn’t stayed up two nights reading the frazzing Bible, maybe I could think enough to—

  “Yost, you hijacker, get him back to the Station!”

  “Aye aye, sir, as soon as I get him inside.” The inner hatch slid open. Tommy stumbled over the ancient suit, hauled me past. “Sit there.” He shoved me into a seat. Forgetting we were in zero gee, I tried to balance the plate on my knees.

  The arm of the suit blocked the hatch. With a muttered curse, Tommy dragged it to the tiny aisle.

  As he let go, the helmet twisted to one side.

  I gasped.

  It was Fath.

  “TOMMY!” Hands made useless by desperate frenzy, I clawed at the clamps.

  “Oh, my God!” He knelt, ripped off the helmet.

  Fath’s face was gray and lifeless.

  Yost spun, snapped my clamps, tore off my own helmet. “Stay with him!” He threw himself at the pilot’s seat. He gunned the engine so hard we shot past our lock.

  Please, Sir. I’ll never ask anything else as long as I live. Just this one miracle. Please.

  Nothing.

  And then Fath breathed.

  38

  PANDEMONIUM.

  The clang of alarms. Thudding boots, med techs, a crash cart, skid marks on the deck.

  Corrine, I, Janey, Yost, Colonel Kaminski, a sea of hovering faces.

  “Stand back!”

  Janey beat on her mothers leg. “Will Daddy get up?”

  Gentle hands enwrapped my forehead in a warm bosom. I clung.

  “Get the mask—”

  “I’m all right. Don’t need—”

  “Yes, you do, sit.”

  “Mrff …”

  “Nick …” Corrine’s fingers pressed me tighter. “Oh, Nick.”

  “Those tanks were dead empty!” A med tech, outraged.

  “Probably all they had.”

  “… up. Let me up.”

  SALT IN HUMANS. SALT IN OUTRIDER. NO-WAR HUMAN / OUTRIDER.

  Salt in us, salt in them. Peace. The outriders had gone glitched.

  I stiffened. “Oh, Lord God!” Abandoning Corrine, I pushed through the circle tending Fath. “Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another. Mark 9:50.” I’d read the testament, eyes blurring on the holovid.

  Fath’s eyebrows furrowed. He tore off his mask.

  “On the plate!” I ran to the bulkhead, grabbed it, held it before his face.

  He seemed embarrassed. “The air got … at the end I was rambling a bit. Salt was on my mind. A covenant of salt forever, if the salt has lost his savor, that sort of thing. That’s the best I could translate.”

  “Why did they write me that particular verse?”

  “Perhaps they understood it. Agreed with the sentiment.”

  Slowly, as if by unspoken agreement, the circle around him eased. He propped himself on one arm.

  “Fath, sir, why’d you give them your thrustersuit?”

  “As a gesture of submission.”

  “You could have died.”

  “Unless they wanted me to live.”

  “Alone, in the fish, with no suit … I couldn’t imagine the torment he’d undergone.

  He winced, as if recalling memories he’d avoid. “Out of the belly of hell cried I, and Thou heardest my voice.”

  I blurted, “For Thou had cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about.”

  He looked at me with astonishment.

  I shrugged, shamefaced. “I had nothing else to read.”

  He struggled to his feet, looked me over more closely. “Just why are you half-suited?”

  I swallowed.

  His eyes narrowed. “Joey, what have you been up to?”

  The caller crackled. “Comm Room to Commandant. A call for Captain Seafort. Is he, ah, up to it?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. With any luck, Fath would overlook my escapade. A click. “Frand here.”

  Perhaps Fath was still muddled. He left the speakers on. We all heard.

  “Seafort.”

  “We’re about to Fuse.” A pause. “I wish events … I had no choice but to relieve you.”

  Fath said nothing.

  Ms Frand cleared her throat. “Has Mr Kenzig given you instructions?”

  “What about?”

  “Whether to take the next ship in the pipeline, or to await orders from home.”

  “He has not.” Fath’s tone was bleak. “Does it matter?”

  “Our agreement was vague on the point. I’d like to inform Admiralty.”

  “I imagine,” said Fath, “I’ll make my way home.”

  “You’ll be too late, you know. Scanlen was right.”

  “Ah. You heard?”

  “He spoke from the bridge.”

  I rolled my eyes. The day Fath would share his bridge with a fraz like Scanlen …

  “You know,” said Ms Frand, “I’m rather surprised you didn’t sneak aboard a launch, try to seize the ship, the way you did Galactic.”

  “I gave my word. I keep it.”

  “But if you’d reached home, you might have convinced the Assembly. You’re so bloody effective with the media. With so much at stake …”

  “Tend to your conscience,” Fath said. “I’ll tend mine.”

  “Well … what, Ms Skor? All right, stand by to prime. You know, Seafort, I’m rather glad your treaty won’t stand a chance. Always hated those creatures. Farewell.” The speaker crackled, went silent.

  Fath replaced the caller.

  I slammed my fist into the bulkhead. “Bastards! Why do they gloat?”

  Fath didn’t seem put out. “To reassure themselves.”

  “Fath …” I shook my head. Didn’t he see? Our accomplishments meant nothing? The fish would be obliterated, Hope Nation reduced to servility, Corrine Sloan rearrested and put to death. It was all a matter of time. If only she’d killed Scanlen as well as Andori; if only the Bishop hadn’t coerced Fath into exile …

  “Don’t despair, son.”

  My tone was dull. “What will you do now?”

  “Why,” he said, “I think I’ll go home.”

&nb
sp; My heart leaped. “We can repair the Station’s fusion drive?”

  “Impossible. The core of the Station is an obsolete ship, but her drive is gone. They’ve built sections right across the remains of the old tube shaft.”

  “If we cut away …”

  “No, there’s no way to generate a wave. The engine itself is gone.”

  “But Olympiad’s Fused.” She was the only starship within nineteen light-years that could get Fath home. “And you gave your word.”

  “You’re dying to know, joey. Very well, tonight, in my cabin. With your mother and Janey.”

  “My moth—” I gulped. It seemed there was a lot he wasn’t telling me.

  “Look at them.” Mr Dakko peered through the porthole.

  It was a sight to behold. Fish, six hundred of them, nosed about a cargo shuttle, careful not to damage its hull. Huge chunks of salt—I’d thought it only came as grains—floated about. Fish nuzzled the chunks, absorbing them through gaping membranes. Occasionally, an outrider assisted his craft.

  In the shuttle’s cargo bay, a Station hand worked to off-load salt as quickly as possible. A volunteer; I marveled that we’d found one. I’d have gone, but Fath refused with such vehemence I dared not ask again. So I hung about, receiving an occasional pat on the shoulder. He didn’t mean to be condescending, he was just preoccupied.

  “The first step.” Fath’s voice was quiet. “Who would have thought …”

  Mr Dakko rested his chin on his palm. “If only Kevin could have seen it.”

  I glanced at Fath, read what might be permission. “It was Kev’s doing, sir.”

  “And yours, joey.” Mr Dakko was silent a long moment. “I’ve been spiteful to you, and mean. I’m sorry.”

  “No more than I deser—”

  “You have my respect.”

  I blinked away a sudden sting.

  Mr Dakko said to Fath, “This maneuver will use up a year of credits. Closer to two.”

  “Think of the alternative.”

  A gloomy sigh. “I know. Do it.”

  Fath smiled. “I never thought you’d say otherwise.”

  “Not so, Jerence. Just borrowing it for a while.” Janey sat on his lap, playing with his lapel. We were in his cabin.

  While he listened, he threw an arm across my shoulder, hauled me closer. “We’d help you jury-rig a temporary. Ah, well. You know, of course, that if you refuse I’d go along with you.”

  In the caller, tinny words of protest.