Though she enjoyed every moment she spent with her son, trying to hold on to what she remembered of him, the young man was especially quiet today. She wondered what he was thinking, knowing he maintained a constant running dialogue with his alien companion.
As a young man, Devon had longed to go fishing on Klief, and when the first trout ponds opened on Hellhole, she had promised to take him. For years she had repeated the promise, always assuming there would be time. Ever resourceful, the young man had even taken a makeshift pole out to streams near Michella Town to fish, but he’d caught only strange and inedible aquatic slitherers, spiny native creatures that fought and thrashed until he severed the line. That wasn’t real fishing!
Now, even though Devon had changed beyond measure, she wanted to make up for all the disappointment. Their fishing gear was in the back of the vehicle.
Sophie guided them along the bumpy road to the local fish hatchery, telling him about the holding ponds full of fingerlings. Growing up on Hellhole, Devon had become an expert on the geology, the weather, the plantings in the greenhouses, the native creatures that had survived the devastating impact. He loved science. Now he listened while she discussed the water-quality problems due to the intrusion of sulfur and trace selenium into the ponds.
With a flash of his old personality, he seemed interested and glad to spend time with her, but he was also distracted to be away from Antonia and the other shadow-Xayans. Sophie leaned closer as the vehicle lurched over a rut in the road. “We’ll enjoy this, Devon,” she insisted. “We need this time together.”
The vehicle rumbled past outdoor runways for yearling fish, water-filled tanks that were covered by roofs to keep native predatory birds from feeding on them. Off in the distance, Sophie saw the main hatchery building and the half-built learning center where tourists and schoolchildren would be brought to learn about the hatchery operations. Someday.
When she stopped the vehicle at one of the fishing ponds, Devon’s interest perked up. The lake was well stocked with warm-water trout in a natural environment. Along the pond’s shore, pale blue succulent trees provided shade for fishermen. As the vehicle came to a stop, Sophie saw a man and a boy on the far bank, fishing together. Her heart ached when she saw the two. Devon hadn’t had a father to do that with him.
She could have been a better mother to him. When the boy was only ten, she’d whisked him away to the Deep Zone—and from that point on, the day-to-day difficulties of establishing a decent life in the rigorous environment had required most of her attention. Now they faced a war, which placed many demands and anxieties on all citizens of Hellhole. Time had slipped through her fingers. She regretted that her son had never enjoyed a normal childhood. Even worse, with Birzh living inside of him he had no normal adult life either.
The previous night while Adolphus prepared for his trip to Ridgetop, she had worked long hours to catch up on her summaries and delegated tasks. Now, for half a day, while the weapons factories worked smoothly, while ships patrolled space around the planet, while the shadow-Xayans continued their drills, Sophie set everything else aside, determined to spend time with Devon.
In a flash of his old personality, the young man sprang from his seat and retrieved their fishing gear from the back of the vehicle. Sophie was glad to see the childish delight in his blue eyes. “I’ll set up our poles, Mother.”
Sophie’s feelings were more than just the regrets of a busy mother. She needed reassurance that his human personality remained intact and strong. Glancing at Devon, she could see the alien shimmer and faint spirals in his eyes, but his occasional comments and expressions gave her hope that she was actually sitting beside Devon now. She wanted just a few hours with her son, her only son. Relenting, Birzh had granted him full prominence, although their personalities were so interconnected that Sophie had trouble distinguishing one from the other.
She smiled as she watched him prepare the poles, and when he caught her watching, he smiled back—the warm, pure smile she remembered so well from his childhood.
“Birzh finds this interesting,” he said. “The Xayans eat by grazing over native vegetation on the ground. The process of catching food, especially out of the water, is strange to them.”
“I’m glad we’re able to entertain him,” Sophie said.
“Actually, we’re educating him.”
They fished from the bank for more than an hour, sharing a snack and a drink, although they got nothing more than a tentative nibble on their hooks. Devon laughed often, and kept changing the lures and bait on their lines, trying different options. When he was younger, he had read extensively on fishing techniques, constantly daydreaming about the sport.
“Sorry it took so long for us to spend this time together,” Sophie said. “We should have done it years ago.”
“You’ve been busy with important things. I understand a lot more now.”
“You never complained,” she said. “You’ve always been a good son, and I’m really sorry.”
“No need for apologies. Today makes up for it all.” He kissed her cheek. Yes, this was the familiar Devon. He was still there inside. “But don’t be sad, Mother. I need you to understand that Birzh has gained as much from my memories as I have gained from him. I take a lot of pride in letting him relive some of my favorite meals from years past, as well as what you did for me on my birthdays, the time I hid from you in the greenhouse domes, and the first time you tried to sew me a shirt.”
She gave an embarrassed chuckle. “I was never meant to be a seamstress, darling, but you wore that shirt anyway.”
“And the first time you let me take the Trakmaster controls, and when I tried to bake you a holiday cake.”
Sophie rolled her eyes. “That cake was a disaster as bad as the asteroid impact.”
“The mess I left in the kitchen was a true disaster.” Then after a long pause he added, “I am different now, though.”
“I know,” she said.
“But I’m still Devon, and I still have human feelings. I know you’ve been worried about me, and I don’t blame you for that—but I don’t regret for one minute what’s happened to me, or to Antonia. I’ve already experienced more wonders than I could have wished for in ten human lifetimes.”
She felt tears well up in her eyes. “Just don’t go too far away from me.”
“I haven’t, and I won’t.”
On the opposite shore the other boy hauled in a big, energetic trout, and held it high like a trophy. Neither she nor Devon caught any fish, but it didn’t matter. Sophie had not come out here looking for fish; she’d come here looking for her son—and she’d found him.
When they packed up to go back, Devon said, “I had a great time with you, Mother. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she said. “More than I could ever put into words.”
29
Far afield. Adrift.
Despite the growing sense of unease throughout the Constellation fleet, Escobar Hallholme tried to avoid feeling like he was lost. Everybody aboard could sense it as the numerous ships ranged in ever-widening search spirals, trying to locate the molecule-fine iperion line. They spread farther apart, expanded their hunt.
And found nothing.
Though Escobar laid out a plan to sweep the emptiness, crisscrossing the open volume, by the end of the first week the efforts had an increasingly frantic edge. The five military haulers stayed within an hour’s light-distance from one another to remain in emergency communication. The warships detached from each hauler framework and ventured out to comb empty space, their iperion detectors extended.
“It’s not so easy to find a stringline.” Jackson Firth sounded as if he had just realized it.
“No one ever said it would be easy, Mr. Firth.” Escobar hated to be reminded of his failure. No, not failure, he corrected himself: setback. He did agree with Gail Carrington about the need for this search, and as soon as he found the outbound iperion line again, no one would regard this as a failure anymore. He
was determined to turn the situation around, which would make the eventual victory taste even sweeter. Before the pedantic diplomat could make further comments, Escobar said, “Lieutenant Cristaine, any report from the other four haulers?”
“Reports, sir, but no success. The search continues.”
The diplomat sounded annoyed. “I will not be dismissed, Red Commodore. For the first days of this expedition, I ignored your insulting comments, your obvious disapproval of me and my team. You told us that we were irrelevant until you completed your part of the mission. Well, I’m waiting, sir. Do your part of the mission so that I may perform my own valuable work.”
“Thank you for your advice, Mr. Firth,” Escobar said, his irritation plain. “I’ll consider it carefully.” He wanted to strangle the man. “Now kindly leave the bridge so that I can do my job, as you demand.”
The diplomat left, indignant, but clearly satisfied to have scored a point. Escobar sat back in his command chair, noticing furtive glances from other members of his bridge crew before they went about their business again.
As each day passed without locating the stringline, the iperion was dissipating further, decreasing the chances of the line ever being found again. By now his search effort had probably taken them a great distance from the severed stringline, but he bullishly insisted on going ahead. Finding that route was their only chance. Even if they located the opposite end of the stringline segment, they could not go back to Sonjeera; Carrington had made that clear, and his own sense of honor refused to let him to consider it an option … not that they could pursue it anyway.
And so the haulers pushed ahead and wandered farther afield, following Escobar’s orders. As everyone else was surely thinking, his heroic father would never have given up.
As his frustration increased, Escobar was plagued with homesick thoughts. At his wedding to Elaine Riomini, he had paid little attention to how beautiful his new wife was, or her personality, or whether their interests were compatible. The marriage forged an alliance between the Hallholmes and one of the most powerful bloodlines in the Constellation. It brought his family into the ranks of nobility. Escobar could not have wished for more. And when Elaine turned out to be pleasant enough, and on good terms with her powerful great-uncle, those things were unexpected benefits.
The wedding had been a sparkling, extravagant affair, with hundreds of guests from across the Crown Jewels; neither Escobar nor Elaine had ever met most of them. Her dowry had been enormous, and the wedding gifts alone added up to more wealth than Escobar had ever seen in his life. Intricate golden eggs, ornate wire-frame sculptures, jeweled towels, and bottles of wine so old and so valuable that no one would ever consider drinking them.
They were married in the vineyards of the old Adolphus estate. Though he would have preferred a ceremony on Sonjeera, Escobar realized it was a good symbolic way to twist the knife, should the exiled General ever learn about it.
He still hoped to groom their two sons into prominent members of the military. After defeating General Adolphus, Escobar had expected to claim administrative responsibilities over one or more Deep Zone planets, to supplement his family’s wealth and influence.
He had never dreamed that he and his entire fleet would get lost in deep space, and that the General would trip him and make him fall flat on his face.
* * *
The numbers didn’t lie.
Despite his noble blood and impressive marriage, Bolton Crais was little more than a glorified inventory specialist. Militarily speaking, he wasn’t much. Now his stature had risen even when he didn’t really want it to; he was a mathematical fortune-teller, able to see the future of the stranded fleet. And it was frighteningly grim.
Bolton sat alone in a small observation blister on the top deck of the Diadem’s Glory. The framework of the stringline hauler blocked part of his view, and the other warships crowded in docking clamps made him feel claustrophobic, but he stared out at the swatch of stars through the gaps. The fleet was in the middle of nowhere, cast adrift like rudderless sailing ships after a storm, with no hope of finding their way back to civilization.
Bolton had dimmed the lights in the observation blister as he tried to think of a solution, but the numbers were as implacable as the laws of physics. He had arranged the inventory himself. He knew their food supplies, fuel levels, life-support capabilities, energy reserves, and the number of crewmembers.
They could not survive for long.
Escobar Hallholme interrupted him from behind, making Bolton jump in his padded observation chair. “We need to find a way out of this, Major Crais.”
“I didn’t know you were there, Redcom.”
“I’m not here with an entourage or fanfare.” Escobar lowered his voice, as if there might be eavesdroppers. “Is it as bad as I think it is?”
Bolton got up from his seat. “I’m afraid it is, sir. When we loaded the ships on Aeroc, I included more than the recommended supply buffer, and I took contingency measures with equipment and personnel—but even factoring in unforeseen difficulties, I never prepared for a lengthy operation. The fleet should have resupplied after we seized planet Hallholme, and we expected the Constellation to send ships full of occupation forces later on, via the stringline.” He shook his head. “I have gone over the numbers, run models using the most extreme initial conditions. There is no possible way we can survive more than six weeks, maybe eight at the outside under strict food and water rationing.”
Startled, Escobar said, “I don’t plan on staying here six weeks, Major. We need to find an alternative before that.”
“I agree, we must. But what? With the stringline cut, our haulers can’t go anywhere. Our warships do have standard FTL engines, but there’s not enough fuel to take them to planet Hallholme … and that journey would still require almost three months, so our people would be dead before the ships arrived. Or we could try to head back to Sonjeera with standard engines, but that would take a minimum of four months under conventional power.”
“I shouldn’t have mocked you for your conservative estimates when you were loading the ships.” Escobar straightened. “On the other hand, if we had left sooner, we might have arrived before the General could blow the stringline.”
“Our only option now is to wait to be rescued,” Bolton said. “We must tighten our belts, reduce our life-support requirements and power drains … and hope we can last until someone comes for us.”
Escobar stared out at the stars. His voice carried a machete edge of anger. “And who would rescue us? General Adolphus? I would not allow that!” His voice became quieter. “When we left Sonjeera with all that fanfare, I was certain we’d wipe out the rebel vermin in their filthy nests, and we would do it quickly. Now it appears we were overconfident.”
“Hubris,” Bolton said. “It may be that we have only two choices left: die, or let Adolphus rescue us. From a practical standpoint, he will want to commandeer our ships. Neither option is heroic, but it’s what we have.”
* * *
Each time the crews went to the mess halls and saw their meager rations, they were reminded of the “temporary austerity measures” that were supposed to see them through this crisis.
On the bridge of the Diadem’s Glory, Escobar stared out at the starry expanse. He felt a dull knife in his stomach—tension and anxiety for now, but soon it would become the ever-increasing ache of hunger. Ten days ago, he’d sat at the captain’s table enjoying a feast, eating too much prime rib, opening too many bottles of wine.
As the son of Commodore Hallholme living on the Qiorfu estate, Escobar had never wanted for anything. When he was growing up, he had thought nothing of sending away his dinner plates with half the meal untouched. Any morsel that didn’t meet his fancy went into the waste processor. It was quite different now.
If they didn’t find the stringline soon, the Constellation fleet would be in no condition to attack General Adolphus.
“Redcom, there’s an emergency message from one of the se
arch frigates,” Lieutenant Cristaine said. “Some sort of a struggle aboard.”
“Play it!” he barked.
At first, the communication bursts were peppered with shouts, cut-off sentences, and weapons fire. Finally, a haggard-looking man—Captain Felix Noorman—appeared on the screen. “Redcom, my crew staged a revolt. We have thirteen dead—seven in the actual conflict, and six mutineers whom I summarily executed. I saw no alternative, sir.”
Escobar started to respond, but the comm-officer told him, “There’s a forty-five-minute signal delay, sir.”
Captain Noorman continued his report. “Tensions have been high. Our seventh search pattern found nothing, and when we received a fleet-wide report of null results, twenty crewmen broke into the armory, killed the guards. Apparently they believed with fewer people aboard they could ration our food and fuel and use the FTL engines to make it to another star system.”
“That’s preposterous,” Escobar said under his breath. “Pause the transmission.” The report cut off as he rose from his command chair. “I’m going into my ready room. Pipe the rest of the signal in there. And I want to send a coded transmission back to Captain Noorman with explicit instructions.”
“Other ships in the fleet have already heard the broadcast, Redcom,” Lieutenant Cristaine cautioned.
Escobar silently cursed Noorman for revealing too much. The man should have kept his report classified. The Army of the Constellation had not operated on a wartime footing for years, and service in the military had been an exercise in self-aggrandizement for noble families with extra sons and daughters. Discipline had fallen apart, making the fleet a private club with fancy uniforms and large military ships.
As he walked to his ready room, Escobar said, “Broadcast my orders to the entire battle group. I am imposing strict, complete radio silence. All transmissions are to be sent on a coded band, reports to be made directly to me here on the flagship. I will choose which information to disseminate fleet-wide. This isn’t an entertainment network. This is a vital military operation.”
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