She gave him a level look.
“I’m not transferring,” he said. “We could tell them what happened on Mary River, if that’s what you want.”
Jodenny shook her head. She watched VanAmsal inspect the damaged crate and slap a repair code on its side. “Not yet. When we get to Warramala, we should see if it happens again.”
“Why would it? What happened was probably a fluke. If it was common, people would be reporting it all the time. Besides, if we’re seen together there, it will just further the gossip. I don’t like it that people think the only way I can get ahead is to sleep with you.”
Didn’t he want to sleep with her? Jodenny quashed an inappropriate mental image of him naked and warm in her bed. “I resent it, too. But you know we’re not fraternizing, and I know it, so people will just have to find their fodder elsewhere.”
“You think it’s that easy?”
“No,” Jodenny said. “But it shouldn’t be that hard, either.”
“If I were a lieutenant in some other division, would you—” Myell started to say, then clamped his mouth shut.
“Would I what?” Jodenny asked.
Myell shook his head.
Talking was getting them nowhere, and the noise from the mag-lev was giving her a headache. “Do you want that transfer to Admin?” she asked.
“No.” Defiance in his tone. “I’m staying right here.”
She couldn’t say she disapproved. Better that he remain in her division, where she could keep a professional eye on him no matter how much he aggravated her. Wildstein didn’t seem surprised or disappointed when Jodenny relayed Myell’s preferences. Jodenny waited for Master Chief DiSola to raise the issue, but he said nothing. None of her fellow officers hinted that Jodenny had behaved improperly, although there was one wry remark the afternoon they painted the wardroom with the Aral Sea’s emblem.
“A fine reproduction if I do say so myself,” Vu remarked as she wiped her hands clean.
Zarkesh, who’d been recruited to assist with the job, said, “It’s all in the wrist.”
Hultz said, “I think it looks great. I can’t wait until we get the boys from Flight up here and whip their butts on Izim. Right, Jodenny?”
“Hmm?”
“Where are you?” Vu asked, a twinkle in her eye. “Daydreaming? You look like a woman falling in love.”
Jodenny picked up a paintbrush and lied to everyone, including herself. “Trust me. I’m not falling anywhere.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
The next day she took Rokutan up on his offer to tour the Flight Deck and hangar. The Flight Deck was on A-Deck, and it was from there that all the birdies, foxes, and other ship’s craft launched and returned. A few dozen craft sat parked against the bulkheads, much as they’d been during the Hail and Farewell. The launch doors were closed, but during normal ops they would be open with a clearshield in place. The lifts, winches, and DNGOs that moved the ships around in the cavernous space were all quiet, and only one sergeant was on duty in the overhead booth normally manned by two dozen Flight crew.
“Everyone’s off in meetings or training,” the sergeant said when Rokutan brought Jodenny up.
Rokutan said, “Lieutenant Scott was interested in seeing how things worked up here.”
“Sure thing, Commander,” the sergeant said. He gave Jodenny a quick but thorough overview of the panels, vids, and sensors. “There’s nothing going on while we’re in the Alcheringa, but the minute we drop out at Warramala we’ll launch the foxes, get the birdies out inspecting the towers, start receiving passengers and cargo, and start up training flights. Everything gets prepped, repaired, boarded, unloaded down in the hangar—the Flight Deck’s only for launching and landing, and you don’t want to be out there when the birdies fire up their engines anyway.”
Jodenny nodded politely, well aware of most of that already.
“We do primary monitoring from this station here. There’s always a Flight Duty Officer on watch, even when nothing’s happening. In the event of an emergency that FDO can take remote control of any ship that carries our markers. There’s a backup station on the bridge, and they can do the same. In a really big emergency, the bridge can actually ditch the clearshield by jettisoning the shield generators. We’ve got our own manual override—that control panel down there.”
Jodenny could see the panel, which was marked with clear danger signs.
The sergeant snickered. “Course, you’d only do that if you’re crazy, desperate, or bucking for a hero’s medal.”
He paused, his gaze flickered to the MacBride Cross on Jodenny’s uniform. She pretended not to notice. Hastily the sergeant said, “Anyway, that’s all that’s exciting up here. The hangar’s where the real action is.”
“Thanks, Sergeant,” Rokutan said.
A shielded evacuation ladder led from the Ops booth through the Flight Deck and into the hangar below. A dozen birdies were stripped open for maintenance, and at least thirty mechanics were busy running diagnostics or swapping out equipment. The Flight Support office was a tiny room with space enough for only three desks, some filing cabinets, and a few battered chairs. It smelled like machine oil and fried electronics circuits.
“Morning, sir,” said Sergeant Gordon, a cheerful woman sitting at one of the desks. “Morning, ma’am. Like our office? Used to be a supply closet. The commander gets his own office in Ops. They like him up there.”
Jodenny’s gib pinged. “Excuse me,” she said, and saw that it was Dr. Ng on her ID screen. “I forgot a meeting. Can I take a rain check?”
“Rain or shine, we’re here,” Rokutan said easily. “Come back anytime.”
Jodenny hurried down to F-Deck. Ng wasn’t in his office. She wandered around the science maze until she saw him standing in a small conference room, getting berated by another scientist.
“—that’s not what you’re funded for, Harry,” the woman was saying. “Keep your eyes on your own work, and for god’s sake give up these conspiracy theories.”
Jodenny tiptoed away and waited a few minutes. When Ng did return to his office he had red cheeks and looked miserable. “Oh,” he said, when he saw Jodenny. “Come in.”
Ng had revidded his walls so that the Pleiades star cluster covered the overhead. The Seven Sisters, Jodenny noted. “Everything all right?” she asked.
“Yes. Fine.” Ng’s attention was solely on his deskgib. “I tried calling you. Those runes. They could be from the Wondjina.”
“You said they weren’t.”
“They’re not the kind of runes we’re used to seeing inscribed on Sphere archways.” Ng turned the deskgib screen so she could see it. His shoulders relaxed a bit as he warmed to the topic. “There are thirty-two distinct markings in that alphabet, most of them simple vertical and diagonal hash marks. Symbols that would have been easy to carve into trees and stone to convey short messages—things like ‘This way to the village.’ Pre-medieval Vikings on Earth had a similar system. Of course, we don’t have any kind of Rosetta stone, so no one knows what they mean. We do believe that beings we call the Wondjina built the Spheres, and maybe made the Little and Big Alcheringas, so they would have needed another alphabet to communicate complex messages—engineering logs, scientific research, things like that. The Vikings had another alphabet, too.”
“No one’s ever found another Wondjina alphabet.”
“True. Except for the Spheres, all traces of their civilization have vanished. But about forty years ago an old woman named Mary Dory told the police that she walked into a Mother Sphere near Arborway on Fortune and walked out of a Mother Sphere on some other planet. This was back when people still hoped that Spheres might hold treasure, or dead pharaohs, or all the secrets of the universe. She was as drunk as a skunk when she talked to the police, though, and no one else who visited the Sphere found anything amiss, so it got filed as a piece of urban legend. Twenty years later it was documented in a thesis by a graduate student specializing in modern folklore.” Ng tapped on his
deskgib, indicating the pie-shaped symbol. “The student found this same symbol in Mary Dory’s diaries.”
Jodenny stared at the symbol. She and Myell hadn’t been the first to travel through a Sphere, but they’d been damn close.
“Where exactly did Mary Dory see it?”
“The diary didn’t say. And by the time the graduate student went looking, the old lady had disappeared. No one knows what happened to her.”
“Can I access the thesis and diaries?” Jodenny asked.
Ng shook his head. “No, just abstracts and some sample pages. I doubt the diaries were ever archived in their entirety, and if so they wouldn’t be included in the standard Team Space databases. But when we get to Warramala I can check in some civilian libraries there.”
Jodenny stared at the pie-shaped symbol. An old woman, a bottle of booze, a mysterious trip. “Can I get you to test some soil samples? From the bottom of some boots.”
Ng stared at her. “Whose boots? Soil from where?”
“Don’t ask. I just want to see if there’s anything unusual. Any unidentified plants or minerals.”
“You won’t even tell me who saw these symbols, and when, and where—don’t you understand? If you can step through a Sphere and wind up somewhere else, maybe that has something to do with what happened to the Yangtze.”
“How could it?” Jodenny demanded.
Ng waved his hands in irritation. “I don’t know. I can’t know, until I get more facts. And you’re the one who’s got data she won’t share. Do I think the Spheres can magically transport anyone? No. Not based on what we know right now about them.”
“But you think they could make a starship explode,” Jodenny said.
They stared at each other for a moment.
Jodenny broke the silence. “Please test the boots. If there’s nothing unusual on them, there’s nothing to talk about. When we get to Warramala we can check the libraries, and go from there.”
Ng didn’t look happy about it, but he didn’t fight her, either. Jodenny left the Space Sciences labs with images of runes in her head. On the Flats she saw Olsson waiting for a lift. He stabbed the call button when he saw her, a guilty expression on his face.
“AT Olsson,” she said. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and darted a nervous look around.
“You haven’t answered my imail.” Jodenny had only sent the imail because AM Dyatt had begged her to, and his failure to respond was annoying.
“Sorry, ma’am.” The lift doors opened, and Olsson hurried inside. “I can’t talk. I’m late to watch.”
He was probably lying, but she let him go anyway. She turned away from the lift and saw RT Bartis gazing at her from the corner of the Supply Officer’s suite. He blinked at her and turned away, and she went back to her office thinking only of Ng and Wondjina runes.
* * *
Chang wanted off that night’s midwatch and offered seventy yuros for anyone to take it. Myell swapped for free. Walking cold decks during the wee hours was preferable to being chased by Daris through nightmares. At midnight he reported to the watch office, where thirty other men and women were donning belts and other gear.
“Remind me why robots can’t do this shit,” AT Hull said from behind him.
“Because Team Space needs to keep you busy somehow, bucky,” someone else replied.
Myell turned around. “Because robots can tell when a sensor is triggered, but they can’t tell from a sailor’s expression if he’s up to no good.”
Hull shrugged. “I guess.”
Interesting duty was patrolling the Rocks, where there was plenty of opportunity to meet women. Shitty duty was the underdeck crew bars, off-limits to civilians, where off-duty sailors drank and brawled. Myell and Hull pulled rotation on E- and F-Decks, which would be mostly quiet. Hull hated working in Ops and wouldn’t stop complaining about it.
“Twice last week Chief came to work pissed,” Hull said. “Lieutenant saw it but didn’t do anything. Why don’t we all throw back a dozen pints before coming to work? What’s the point if no one cares? Might as well sit around all day cruising message boards rather than actually try to get anything done.”
They got off the lift at F-Deck and started down the passage. The officers’ gym was open twenty-four hours a day, but no one was inside.
“—so then she told him she’d sleep with him if he changed the roster, and he did, then he finds out she gave him herpes—”
The hydroponics lab was shut down and the door lock said it was secure. Myell double-checked by turning the knob and scanned the lock with his gib.
“—he would have gotten kicked out too, but the Sweet test came back borderline and they gave him a third chance—”
The ship’s training library was used for night classes conducted by live instructors. Locked. The post office handled packages, handmail, and imail. Locked. While Hull droned on about his division, Myell went through the entire checklist and stopped only when he saw a light on in Space Sciences.
“Everything okay, Dr. Ng?” he asked the scientist sitting in his office.
Ng shielded his deskgib as if protecting some highly classified secret. “Yes, Sergeant. Thank you.”
Myell and Hull went upladder to E-Deck. The AT started another long sob story and Myell interrupted him to ask, “If you’re so miserable, why don’t you ask for a transfer?”
Hull grimaced. “One department’s the same as the other, right? Hey, let’s get some coffee.”
“Your job is checking hatches and keeping an eye out, not getting coffee.”
“I’ll get coffee, you check the hatches.” Hull headed for the nearest vending machines.
Myell tried one of the back doors to the E-Deck gym. Unlocked. The passage led to maintenance rooms for the swimming pool, saunas, and steam rooms. A few meters down the passage he found a door clumsily propped open with a towel. He eased into the men’s locker room. White tiles gleamed underneath his boots, and the smell of soap hung heavy in the warm, moist air.
He heard something odd—a squeak, then a thud. He stopped, afraid that the Rainbow Serpent and the Wirrinun were about to put in a special waking appearance. But the next thud sounded too prosaic to be of supernatural origin. He rounded the corner to where Engel had Olsson pinned against a row of lockers. Spallone stood a meter or so away, vicious glee on his face. Olsson was naked and wet, blood staining the corner of his mouth.
“Let him go,” Myell ordered.
Spallone barely glanced at him. “Fuck you, Myell. Turn and walk away.”
“Don’t leave!” Olsson pleaded, and Engel shook him.
“Shut the fuck up,” Engel said.
Myell put a hand on his radio. “Back off now, the two of you, or we can talk about it with the duty officer.”
Engel glanced over his shoulder at Spallone. Myell kept his expression stony. He predicted Spallone rushing him a second before Spallone tried it. He caught him by the arm, twisted the arm behind his back, and shoved him up against the wall. Spallone cursed and spat, but Myell leveraged his arm until it was close to breaking.
“You want more, swipe?” Myell asked.
Spallone didn’t stop struggling. “You and me, Myell. You and me.”
“Anytime, shithead.”
Hull piped up from the doorway, where he was observing them all. “Coffee, anyone? Scalding hot, poured over your head? Who wants it?”
Myell said, “Engel, let him go.”
Engel reluctantly backed off from Olsson, who slid to the floor with a thump and sat there with his hand pressed against his jaw. Spallone grumbled and swore some more but finally calmed down enough that Myell released him.
“Are we reporting this, Sergeant?” Hull asked.
“No, you’re not,” Spallone said.
Hull grimaced. “Not the sergeant I meant. Sergeant Myell?”
From the floor, Olsson said, “I won’t testify.”
“None of us will.” Spallone’s
eyes were on Myell only. “Leave it alone or pay the consequences. It’ll be our word against yours, and you know how that always goes.”
Myell did know. “Your word means shit. Get the fuck out of here.”
Spallone smirked. “Keep your eyes at the back of your head,” he said, and he and Engel walked away and out the back door.
Olsson pulled himself up to the bench. “Shit.”
“You all right?” Myell asked.
“Yeah.” Olsson grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his hips, but didn’t seem inclined to say more.
Hull was watching the door worriedly. “We’re really not reporting this? Just let them get away with it?”
“Give us a minute,” Myell said to Hull. When they were alone Myell said, “You’re going to tell Security what happened. You’ve got two witnesses to back you up.”
Olsson’s tone was tight. “Leave it, Myell, before someone gets hurt in a bad way.”
“That’ll be you, next time they get you alone in a corner.” Myell didn’t like Olsson, but he wasn’t going to be responsible for anything happening to him. “If you care for Dyatt, if that kid’s yours, you need to take care of things before you get yourself hurt or killed.”
Olsson put his hands over his face. “No one can help with this.”
“Is it about the dingo that was stolen?”
Silence.
“I know something’s going on,” Myell said. “You don’t have to go along with them. You could ask for a transfer—”
“Myell, leave it alone.” Olsson stood and started pulling his clothes from a locker. “You’re the last fucking person I’m going to talk to.”
Myell said, “Then at least talk to Chaplain Mow.”
“What the hell can a chaplain do?”
“Get you reassigned, like Dyatt. Maybe more, depending. We can go right now. She won’t mind.”
Olsson shut the locker door and leaned his head against it. For a moment all he did was breathe noisily through his mouth. Then he said, “I’ll go on my own.”
“Trust me,” Myell said. “Walking around alone isn’t what you want to be doing right now.”
* * *
Sanchez had qualified, Gunther was close to taking his oral exams, Hultz had passed her written tests, and Ysten was almost done with his qualifications. Jodenny scheduled herself for a bridge training watch and made sure that it was during a shift when Osherman would be off duty. The Officer of the Day was Lieutenant Hamied, a severe-looking woman with tight, worn features. Once Hamied took turnover and made sure they were sailing smoothly along the Alcheringa, she asked, “What’s the normal output range of the power plants while in port?”
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