Forgotten Worlds

by D. Nolan Clark

  “Mirror!” she screamed. One of her drones lurched toward her, veering from side to side as the ship shook. It manifested a display that showed her what its camera saw.

  She wasn’t being vain. In the display she saw the veins of her upper chest and neck standing out, a deep blue against her translucent skin. She needed to check for bruises and the round shapes of aneurysms—if one of her major blood vessels had just ruptured, she would need to have it treated within minutes or it could be fatal.

  She could have let her drones watch her veins. She’d been doing it for herself all her life, though, and knew she would be a better judge of her illness than any drone.

  Ashlay Bullam suffered from a genetic condition called Type IV (Vascular) Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, or EDS. Her body was unable to properly synthesize collagen. It made her skin more elastic than most people’s, and allowed her to twist her fingers backward in a manner that was a big hit at certain kinds of parties. It also meant that her blood vessels were prone to tear open unexpectedly, as if they were made of paper.

  Most of the time she could ignore the disease. Most of the time it left her alone. Sometimes, though, it would come back and surprise her. She knew the warning signs, the pain, the weakness. She had learned to pay very close attention to what her body told her. In the middle of an acute attack—like now—any sudden shock, any trauma, could rupture her veins and leave her bleeding to death.

  There was a treatment for the disease. Extensive tailored gene therapy injections could fend off the symptoms—and prevent her veins from ripping open—for a few months at a time. There was no permanent cure.

  She had felt the disease coming on back at Niraya. She had known that the voyage to Irkalla was likely to bring on an attack. There’d been nothing for it—the treatment she needed wasn’t available on a backwater like Niraya. She had hoped it wouldn’t be so severe, that it would be a mild event. In this she’d been wrong, so now she had to make sure she survived the descent.

  As the ship rocked and bounced like a plaything of the winds, and she was thrown around in her bed, she stared at her own reflection and prayed she didn’t see any round blue shadows appear beneath her collarbones. One blossomed off to the side, closer to her shoulder. “There!” she shouted, and pointed at the curved patch of blue. The skin above it was already starting to turn purple.

  Another of her drones bobbed forward. It was about the size of her fist and she always thought of it as her little vampire. The drone didn’t need her to direct it, not really, but it made her feel more in control to order it around. As she watched, a hatch on the drone’s face sprung back and a sterile large-bore needle extended outward. The needle sank into her skin and drew away the excess blood, then heated up to cauterize the wound. Tiny jets built into the sides of the needle sprayed artificial collagen over the site, in a crisscross pattern to prevent scar formation.

  Somehow the drone managed not to break the needle off inside her skin, even as the ship juddered and lurched side to side.

  By the time the drone was done, before it had even swabbed her down with antiseptic, the ship cut through the lowest band of clouds. Tendrils of vapor streamed from its fittings and its rails as it burst through into clear air, into the eternal misty night of Irkalla.

  Within minutes the yacht settled down onto a hexagonal landing pad on the outskirts of Regenstadt, the largest city on the planet.

  By that time Bullam was sedated again, her eyes rolling in her head. She was barely aware of where she was as a medical team swarmed onboard the yacht and carried her out. They handed her off to a ground-effect ambulance, its flashers already spinning blue light across the slick pavements of the city. She was just conscious enough, as they pushed an oxygen mask down over her face, to call for one of her drones.

  “Get a status report on activity three-nine-oh-six,” she told it. “Mark the request as urgent.”

  She needed to know as soon as possible whether they had captured Aleister Lanoe.

  “Bury, please do sit down,” Candless said. “You aren’t accomplishing anything except to annoy the rest of us.”

  The Hellion had been trying for the last hour to pry open the door. He had no tools with which to accomplish this other than his own fingers, and mostly he’d spent the time grunting and cursing.

  “The first duty of a prisoner is to escape,” he told her.

  “Where exactly did you hear that?” she asked. “I’m certain I didn’t teach you anything of the sort. No, no, no. The first duty of a prisoner is to survive.”

  The three of them had been scooped up by the marines back at the administration building on Rishi. They hadn’t been given a chance to put up a fight. The marines had shoved sacks over their heads, then moved them to a little room with a couple of benches and a locked door and nothing else. No one had told them anything. They hadn’t been given any food or water in six hours.

  It hadn’t taken long for Bury to start pacing, and once that started it was only a matter of time before he tried to escape. Ginger couldn’t seem to calm down, either. She kept trying to bring up a wrist display, but every time, it just flashed red at her to tell her all communications were blocked. “There has to be something we can do,” she said. “If we—if we offer them something they want, maybe if we agree to answer their questions, maybe they’ll let us go. If there was just a dedicated display in here, some way to contact the guards—”

  “There isn’t,” Candless told her. “Nor have they asked any questions. You sit down, too, Ginger.”

  “And what exactly is sitting down going to get us?” Bury demanded.

  “It will help me get over my headache,” Candless told him. “Part of being a good pilot—part of being a good adult—is learning that there are some problems you can’t fix. These people are very good at security. They put us here because they wanted to keep us out of the way. We aren’t going to be asked if that’s acceptable to us.”

  Ginger shook her head. “We don’t know what they want. We don’t know what they’re going to do to us. We don’t even know where we are!”

  Candless closed her eyes and sighed.

  “We’re in a detaining cell onboard a Hoplite-class cruiser. In the brig, to use the old term.” She ran her hand over one wall. “It’s an older model. Probably saw service in the Establishment Crisis, but it’s been refurbished, very recently.”

  She opened her eyes again and saw the cadets staring back at her. Ginger’s mouth was slightly open.

  “I’ve been in the Navy a long time,” she told them. “I’ve seen my share of Hoplites.” She let herself smile, a thin, small smile of remembrance. Because she was still their teacher, she omitted the fact that she’d seen the inside of a brig or two, as well.

  “But—how can you tell all that?” Ginger asked. “I mean, about it being an old ship, and being fixed up?”

  Candless glanced up. “You see those lights in the ceiling? Those are high-efficiency fluorescent strips. Back in the bad old days, back when we fought real wars, cruisers could be out in the field for years at a time and they had to conserve power any way they could. Newer ships are designed for short campaigns and so they use less efficient lighting systems.”

  “You got all that from the lights?” Bury asked.

  “Paying attention,” Candless said, “is the best way to learn things. And learning things is the best way to stay alive in this world. You should both be taking notes.”

  Ginger shook her head. “But … how did you know about the refurbishment?” the girl asked.

  “Smell the air in here. It’s clean. The filters have been changed in the last week, if I don’t miss my guess. The Navy never changes its air filters as often as it should. And there—do you see that panel in the wall near the ceiling? It’s a lighter color than the rest of the wall. It’s been replaced and it hasn’t had time to get dingy yet.”

  Bury nodded. Candless didn’t much like the intense expression on his face—she’d been trying to calm the cadets down with h
er Sherlock Holmes act, and now he just looked more determined.

  “Okay,” he said. “Okay. Here’s the plan. They have to feed us, right? They have to see to our basic needs. When the door opens and a marine comes in with the food trays, I’ll get behind him, and then—”

  He stopped because just then the wall behind him started to rumble. There was a series of clicks and then a panel popped open on an unseen hinge. Behind the panel was a small compartment filled with ration packs and water pouches, the kind you drank from under microgravity conditions.

  Bury stared at the food for a long time before he spoke again. “They’re listening to us. They’re listening to me, to everything I say,” he announced.

  “Yes. And one of them, at least, has a sense of humor,” Candless told him. “Now. Given that they’re listening, why don’t we all sit down and try to be quiet, hmm?”

  Bullam woke with a sedative hangover. She felt like her chest was full of broken glass. It didn’t matter—it would wear off soon enough. The chemicals she’d been given were tailored to break down in her bloodstream once they were no longer needed. She forced herself to climb out of the hospital bed and get dressed, though her fingers felt like stiff twigs. Like they might snap if she wasn’t careful.

  Outside the window she could see the lights of Regenstadt. It was always night on Irkalla, under the thick layer of clouds that protected the planet from the intense stellar winds of its star. It never got truly dark in the city, however. Advertisements for new clothing lines, for the latest minders and bodytech were projected upward onto the cloud banks, glittering seductions whole kilometers across that made a patchwork of the sky. Closer to the ground, ranks of purple lights shone from the top of every building, floodlights spreading low-intensity ultraviolet light to keep the locals from succumbing to vitamin D deficiencies. Just one of the many benefits Centrocor supplied for the people who lived on its headquarters.

  She picked out a dress with a high collar. Not quite in fashion but it would hide the mottling of bruises that had appeared on her chest and shoulder during her attack. As she fastened the three buttons at her throat she noticed, through the window, that a crowd had gathered at the hospital gate. Some of them carried signs or banners. A few wore masks and carried megaphones. There were always protestors in Regenstadt, of course, they were everywhere with their defeated looks and their ragged chants. This bunch were going to be a problem for her, though.

  “Doctor?” she said.

  A display lit up on the surface of the window, where she could see it but it didn’t obscure her view of the streets below. This doctor—she’d had so many—was young, a woman with six blond braids coiled against her scalp. One of them had been dyed blue at some point but was starting to grow out. Bullam supposed doctors didn’t have much time to worry about how they looked.

  “There’s some kind of demonstration out front,” Bullam said.

  “We’ve kept the emergency room entrance clear,” the doctor replied. “Don’t worry, M. Bullam. You won’t have any trouble getting out of here.”

  “Good. So what are they upset about, this time?” Thinking about the protestors allowed her to ignore other, more pressing issues. For the moment.

  “The Benefits Steering Group has passed a new austerity measure. Health care allowances have been cut by three percent, and there’s a new list of treatments we’re not supposed to allow without dispensation. Executives are exempt, of course, so there was no difficulty getting approval for your procedure.”

  “You sound a little bitter, Doctor. I take it you don’t agree with the new policy?”

  The doctor’s face didn’t change. You didn’t get to a position of authority on Centrocor’s planet without learning how to stay pleasant. “Of course not,” she said. “We’re all in this together.”

  In other words, she liked her job.

  Bullam nodded at her. “That’s a great attitude,” she said. “I take it I’m cleared for release? Can you have a car waiting for me by the exit?”

  “Already scheduled,” the doctor told her. “You’re one of our regular customers, and we always try to anticipate our patients’ needs. Anything else we can do for you?”

  Bullam turned away from the window. She had stopped seeing anything out there. Too distracted by her thoughts. She looked over toward the bed and saw her drones rise into the air, sensing that it was time to get moving.

  She had to go explain to her boss what had gone wrong, after all. How the attempt to capture Aleister Lanoe had failed so miserably. And why she didn’t even know where he was now.

  “M. Bullam?”

  She took a breath. “Just … did you see any signs of ischemia?” she asked. “I’m sure you did a scan. No brain damage?”

  “None we could detect. If you’re worried about stroke, you should look for any numbness in the face or your extremities. Blurred vision. Any difficulty with speech—”

  “I know the signs,” Bullam told her. “Thank you, Doctor.”

  She had the drones gather her things and follow her out into the hall. The car, a ground-only model, was waiting for her as promised. As it nosed its way out of the hospital campus some of the protestors rushed toward her, waving their signs. Shouting. The car’s system automatically raised the volume of its complimentary music. It accelerated away from the crowd and they couldn’t keep up.

  When the door of the brig opened there was no warning. Candless had almost fallen asleep on one of the benches. She opened her eyes and looked up, worried that Bury might try to make a break for it.

  He wasn’t given the chance. Two marines with silvered helmets pushed inside the room, shockguns in their hands covering all three of the prisoners. From behind them, a third marine dragged a huge body into the room, then dumped it without ceremony on the floor. As quick as that and the marines were gone again, the door sealing itself shut with the click-click-click of magnetic locks.

  Ginger rose and moved to hover over the body. Candless waved her back. Then she got down on her knees next to it and carefully turned it over onto its back. The body wore a standard suit—not Navy issue, but close enough. The helmet was up and polarized to an opaque black.

  “It’s that guy, the one you had as your second,” Bury said.

  “Perhaps,” Candless told him. “He’s certainly tall enough. What did I say about jumping to conclusions, though? Do either of you remember?”

  They ignored her. “Is he dead?” Ginger asked.

  Candless pinged the body’s cryptab and it read out to a display that emanated from her own collar ring. There wasn’t much there. The name VALK, TANNIS came up and then a mention that he had been a pilot flying for the Establishment, back in the Crisis. Everything else had been scrubbed—she could see empty spaces where the usual information ought to be. She’d heard that the Establishment’s pilots had been stripped of their rank and records but she’d never actually pinged a cryptab like that before.

  “M. Valk?” she said. “Can you hear me?”

  There was no answer. He wasn’t moving. It could be hard to tell if someone was breathing, while they were sealed in a suit with the helmet up, but Candless didn’t see any signs of life at all. Thinking maybe she could do something for him—at the very least close his eyes—she reached for the recessed key on his collar ring that would lower his helmet.

  Valk lifted his right hand and gently, but firmly, pushed her arm away.

  Then he sat up and put his hands on his helmet, as if he were massaging his temples.

  Candless knew the legend of the Blue Devil. She knew he was supposed to be horribly burnt under that black helmet. Maybe he just didn’t want her to have to see what he looked like now. She sat back on her heels, her hands up to show she wouldn’t try again.

  Slowly Valk got to his feet, as Bury and Ginger backed away from him, cramming together in one corner of the room.

  “Hey,” Valk said. His voice sounded weak and hoarse. “Ah, hell. They grabbed you guys, too? Why’d they do that?”


  “We don’t know,” Candless told him. “We were hoping you might tell us. They brought us here with sacks over our heads, and they’ve refused to talk to us since.”

  Valk’s whole torso bowed back and forth. Candless thought he must be nodding. “Yeah. They’re not big on answering questions. Had a few of my own and got the same treatment.”

  “What do they want?” Ginger asked. From the corner.

  “I’m not sure,” Valk told her. “They were after me and Lanoe. I guess they probably took anybody we had contact with, back on Rishi.”

  Candless sighed. “They must know we talked about—”

  “They must think,” Valk said, interrupting her, “that we told you something. When we didn’t, not at all. What did we talk about, huh? The duel, right. And you and Lanoe talked about old times, a little. That’s all. Just friends having a drink.”

  He’s not completely hopeless, Candless thought. Valk must know that their captors were listening. He was trying to imply that Candless had never heard anything the Navy might want her not to know. She doubted that their captors would just accept Valk’s deception and let her and her students go, but she applauded the effort.

  “Yeah, I got the sack-over-the-head treatment, too,” Valk said. “They had me in a different room, asked me a whole lot of questions. I guess they got tired of hearing the same answers over and over, and that’s when they brought me here.” He shrugged—a tricky gesture for anyone in a suit. He lifted both arms and let them fall again. “Wish I had more information to give you.”

  Candless wondered if he did have more information—but didn’t want to implicate them by sharing it. It was damned frustrating, not being able to talk freely.

  “I’ve worked out that we’re on a Hoplite,” she said. “And we’re moving—there’s gravity in here.” The cruiser had no way of generating gravity except by burning its engines, so they had to be traveling somewhere.