by S. H. Jucha
“It’s what I didn’t find, ma’am. I couldn’t find the Articles, but I found a log laying out the database organization and the files contained in the various directories within the library. There are a good number of files missing.”
“The Andropov family,” Harbour said, with disgust.
“Aye, ma’am, and now that piece of female effluent has them,” Dingles replied.
“Dingles, you old rascal, were you listening to the conference call?”
“For most of it, Captain, until I was disconnected soon after you cut your connection. I thought it was important to maintain the comm connections,” Dingles said. His expression was as neutral as he could make it.
“Nice try, Dingles. I like the sincere face, but you forgot to control your spike of nervousness at being uncovered.”
“That’s not fair, Captain. How am I supposed to play my role as first mate?”
“You’ll have to become more inventive, Dingles. Doesn’t age bestow wisdom?”
“Supposedly, ma’am. I’ll have to go looking for some. Maybe Nadine can give me some pointers,” Dingles replied with a grin.
“You be careful there, Dingles. That might be more woman than you can handle.”
“Understood, ma’am, but spacers like challenges.”
“Enough banter, Dingles. I need those files. Any chance that there are copies somewhere on this ship?”
“As I heard the story, ma’am, the last captain didn’t make Pyre’s orbit. It was the first mate who brought the Belle into this system. Why they didn’t wake an alternate captain, I don’t know. I can check the captain’s cabin for a secondary file storage system, and there’s a slim chance that the first mate pulled the Articles to study up on them. I doubt either of the two men will have the full number of files missing from the library, but they might have the Articles.”
“Find those Articles for me, Dingles, if you can. I think they’re going to prove very informative, if the Andropov family removed them.”
“Aye, aye, Captain. Will there be anything else?”
“Two things, Dingles. Who runs the Miners’ Pit, specifically, who is responsible for its management?
“Why that’s Maggie, Captain.”
“Set me up a meeting, Dingles. Something in the early morning before she opens. I need a private conversation, and you’re attending.”
“Understood, Captain, and the second thing?”
“Can we call the Spryte from my cabin?”
“Aye, Captain. When do you want to do that?”
“Now, Dingles.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.” Dingles disconnected Harbour’s comm unit and plugged his into the monitor. It carried a set of apps that could control the Belle’s comm system remotely. “This is the Belle calling the Spryte,” Dingles announced over his comm unit when he was ready.
“Ituau of the Spryte here. Is that you, Dingles?”
“One and the same. Been resurrected from the refuse pile.”
“What are you doing now, you old space dog?”
“That’s First Mate Space Dog to you, you undersized excuse for an officer.”
Ituau’s deep belly laughter echoed over the comm. Harbour, who stood beside Dingles, smiled at the affectionate conversation.
“Wait, Dingles. If you’re first mate, are you saying the Belle has been reorganized?”
“Yep. I’m calling you to connect our duly elected Captain Harbour with Captain Cinders.”
“Congratulations, Captain,” Ituau replied, straightening up from a slouch in the bridge’s command chair.
“Thank you, Ituau,” Harbour said. “Is your captain still awake?”
“He’s not aboard, Captain.”
“I would hope he’s aboard the Annie, but I’ve this unsettling feeling that you’re going to tell me he’s downside.”
“You guessed it, ma’am. He’s been investigating the alien site. Right about now, the team is tucked into their cots for the night. We’ll be speaking with them before they return to site.” Ituau itched to tell Harbour about the alien bodies, but that would be Jessie’s decision, not hers.
Harbour swore under her breath, and Dingles hid his grin.
“Can’t disagree with you, ma’am,” Ituau added, whose keen ears had picked up Harbour’s expletives.
“Maybe it’s just as well that I give you my message to relay to him, Ituau,” Harbour said.
“I can connect you to Captain Erring, if you prefer,” Ituau replied.
“No, Ituau, come to think of it, you’re the perfect messenger.”
“Why do I think I’m about to be hit by a shock stick?” Ituau grumbled.
“We have a few weeks of preparation, and, after that, we’ll be moving the Belle.”
“Where to, Captain?” Ituau asked.
“See, Captain,” Dingles commented. “I told you we needed to speak to someone who doesn’t have vacuum between her ears. Where do you think, you excuse for a first mate?”
“You’re moving the Belle here?” Ituau asked, with incredulity.
“You got something against being rescued?” Dingles growled.
Harbour thought to tone down Dingles’ side of the conversation, but she could sense the warm pride in his emotions. He was a spacer, who was of critical use, once again.
“No, no … I love the thought that I won’t become a piece of space trash orbiting Triton. But, I don’t think Captain Cinders is going to like this.”
“Which is why I’m not asking his permission,” Harbour said tartly.
“Oh, I get it. Instead of you talking to him, I get to deliver the message. Let me, at least, get some details, Captain. When do you expect to arrive?”
“Dingles?” Harbour asked.
“Three weeks of prep and then four weeks to reach Triton,” Dingles replied.
“Four weeks?” Harbour asked in surprise.
“You have a huge ship there, Captain,” Ituau said. “It takes time to get her moving, and then you’ll begin deceleration at the halfway point, unless you plan to orbit Triton.”
“Negative, Ituau,” Dingles replied. “The captain wants a stationary position relative to Captain Cinders’ ships.”
“Understood. What about food and supplies for your people and ours?” Ituau asked.
“We’ll be provisioned for a year to cover us all,” Harbour replied.
There was a moment of comm silence. When Ituau resumed, her voice was husky with emotion. “Hopefully, you won’t mind, Captain, if I forget decorum when you arrive and give you a big hug.”
Harbour laughed, wishing she could send some comfort Ituau’s way, but then it occurred to her that she already had done that exact thing. “You’ll remember that I’ve met you, Ituau. As long as you don’t break anything vital, your hug will be welcome.”
“You sure about this, Captain? I mean what with all the talk about alien contamination.”
“You heard of any issues, Ituau?” Harbour asked.
“No, ma’am, everything is boringly quiet, except for worrying about the downside crew.”
“Understood, Ituau. We’re coming. You tell that to your hardheaded boss.”
“Will do, Captain. I can’t say how Captain Cinders will take this message, but I know another captain and two crews, who will remember you fondly forever, Captain Harbour.”
Dingles glanced at Harbour, and she signaled to end the call. “Belle out,” Dingles said. He disconnected his comm unit from the monitor and sat staring at the device in his hands.
Harbour could feel wave after wave of poignant pleasure from the old spacer and, oddly, some deep frustration.
When Dingles looked at Harbour, tears glistened in his eyes. “Best call I ever made, Captain,” he said, touching his cap, and he left the cabin.
“Me too,” Harbour whispered, after the door closed.
-28-
Oops
Jessie woke in the morning with a stiff back and a crick in his neck, which he worked on releasing.
&
nbsp; “Long time since you worked a full day in a vac suit, Captain?” Belinda asked.
Jessie looked around and discovered everyone was either eating or finishing a morning meal, and he’d slept through the noise. He glanced at Aurelia, who wore a pained expression. “Problem, spacer?” Jessie asked. It came out much harder than he intended.
“What is it you find objectionable, Captain?” Aurelia asked bluntly. “Me, my powers, or both?”
“Neither, Rules,” Jessie replied. He stood and popped his neck. The crack of the vertebrae was audible in the confined space. “I prefer to make my own way under my own power.”
“You’re saying you can help others, but others can’t help you?”
In various ways, the team members tried to catch Aurelia’s attention and wave her off. She was treading on dangerous ground with the captain.
Jessie stopped stretching and eyed Aurelia. If he thought his stern expression would intimidate her, he was wrong. Guess sixteen years in confinement, ending in molestation and a death hardens a teenager, he thought, which eased his growing anger. He glanced at the faces of his team. Eyes were downcast; mouths twisted in displeasure. Yohlin’s words came back to Jessie. The Annie’s crew had adopted Rules. She was more than a crew member to them, and he’d roughly rebuffed her help. It was rare to feel like an outsider in the company of his own people, but Jessie had to admit that’s right where he stood.
“Okay, Rules, but let’s not make a habit of this,” Jessie said.
“Yes, Captain,” Aurelia replied. She meant it to sound mature, but her excitement was evident. She hurried to Jessie’s cot, sat down, and patted the space next to her.
Jessie reluctantly sat down and placed his hand in the one Aurelia offered him.
“Close your eyes, Captain,” Aurelia requested. It wasn’t necessary, but Aurelia had picked up on the emotional swing of the team when Jessie grew angry at her. She needed him to isolate himself from them. It was something she requested Sasha do so that she wouldn’t stare at the walls, which would feed her resentment.
Aurelia started slowly. She could sense Jessie’s discomfort caused by the aches and pain. He was a proud man, but the years in space had taken their toll on his body. She soothed his mind. The body’s troubles would still be there, but he would be less aware of them, for now. When she felt his mind quiet, she projected a sense of excitement, imagining her own hopes for the day’s adventure.
Jessie felt when Aurelia withdrew her hand from his. For a brief second, he regretted it, but it was immediately overtaken by the demands of command.
“Some food, Captain?” one of the shelter techs called out.
“Actually, yes, I’m starved,” Jessie replied. He admitted to himself that Aurelia’s ministrations had brought him a marvelous sense of peace, which she turned into expectation for the day’s outing to the site. Against his better judgment, he leaned over and kissed the top of Aurelia’s head. It was the only apology she would get.
“I never got kissed, Captain, even when I discovered that huge layer of slush on Emperion,” Darrin objected.
“Would you like yours now, spacer?” Jessie challenged.
Darrin’s tease had been turned back on him, and he sat frozen on his cot, unsure how to reply to Jessie, which broke the team into laughter.
Jessie grinned and walked over to the food prep area. He was starved and grabbed a couple of extra food packets. In no time at all, he polished off his breakfast and picked up his comm unit to update Nate, since Yohlin and Ituau would be in their bunks, catching up on some much-needed sleep.
“Morning, Captain,” Nate said. “Ituau said to wake her when you called. She has an important message for you.”
“Probably best to let her sleep, Nate,” Jessie replied.
“Captain, Ituau told me if you said that and I listened to you, she would beat me black and blue, and we both know she can do it.”
Jessie chuckled. “Okay, Nate, wake her up.”
A couple of minutes later, a sleepy Ituau picked up her comm unit. “Morning, Captain,” she said.
“Morning, Ituau. What’s so important it can’t wait until you’re on duty?”
“I was wondering, Captain, if you’d like to be rescued?”
Jessie looked around the shelter. He thought that perhaps either Ituau or he was sleep deprived and failing to communicate. The shelter team wore astonished expressions.
“I’m certainly not opposed to being rescued, Ituau. Did Pyre’s leaders come to their senses and shorten the quarantine, or is someone foolish enough to make a supply run?”
“That would be the latter, Captain.”
“Okay, Ituau, it’s a little too early in the morning to be playing games with people’s heads. You and I both know that no captain is crazy enough to risk ship and crew to make the passage out to Triton to save a bunch of competitors.”
Jessie regretted starting the call on speaker, and he was writing Ituau’s disciplinary report in his head, while he waited for her reply.
“I don’t think you could consider Captain Harbour and her ship as a competitor, Captain, but maybe you can ask her about that when she gets here, in about seven weeks.”
The shelter’s crew members were reaching hands out to one another in excitement and hanging on every word of the conversation.
When Ituau heard nothing from Jessie, she couldn’t resist a final word. “Did you have a message for Captain Harbour, sir? Something that you’d like me to relate to her?”
“Ituau, if you’re —”
Ituau jumped in to cut Jessie off. It occurred to her that she might have gone too far. “Seriously, Captain, it was Dingles who made the call. That old space dog was deadly serious about coming out here. Harbour was elected to the captaincy by the ship’s residents, and she’s determined to move the Belle to Triton … says she has the equipment, spacers, and supplies to hold out for a year.”
“Ituau, relay that message to Captain Erring when she wakes. She can announce it to the crews of both ships. We’ll be leaving the shelter within a half hour. Downside out.”
“Let’s get moving, team,” Jessie ordered. He donned his vac suit quickly and cycled out of the shelter before anyone else was ready.
“What just happened?” Darrin asked. “I was ready to celebrate.”
A sign of the times was that the team looked to Aurelia, who replied, “The captain is uneasy, anxiety bordering on trepidation.”
“Don’t forget there are nearly three thousand people on the Belle,” Belinda added. “That’s a lot of residents to put at risk. We don’t know for certain that there’s no risk of some sort of alien contamination.”
“And Harbour’s there,” Aurelia added, which garnered her quizzical expressions. “The captain’s distress spiked when Ituau mentioned her name.”
“You’re talking about Jessie Cinders, Rules,” Darrin objected. “You might have read that one wrong, but enough jabbering. Let’s get a move on. The captain’s waiting.”
The team donned their vac suits in a hurry and made their way out to the rover. Seat backs were reset to accommodate the vac suits, which were left on. The ride would be a short one.
Tully drove, as usual, and Jessie sat beside him. Occasionally, a crew member would glance at Aurelia, and she would subtly shake her head. Jessie’s mood wasn’t improving, and his silence confirmed it.
When the rover stopped, Jessie was shaken out of his brooding. He was having trouble compartmentalizing his feelings, which had always enabled him to exercise tight control. Like his crew, he wanted to rejoice at the quick answer to the quarantine’s dilemma. He told himself he was worried for the Belle’s residents, but it was Harbour’s face that he kept seeing.
“Team, don’t touch the bodies today,” Jessie said. “The discovery of the aliens meant we didn’t get to investigate the instrumentation, platform, or ring. We need to come away with something valuable that makes this entire fiasco of a trip to Triton worthwhile. The composition of the alien m
aterials, the type of power generated, its resonance frequency, and anything like that would be extremely useful.”
Helmets were locked, systems checked, and portable equipment grabbed before the crew exited the rover. Rather than lead the team to the site, Jessie followed at their rear. When the site was reached, everyone fanned out to explore it. The technical team concentrated on the console and platform, and Belinda worked to identify the parameters of the signal that Aurelia was receiving.
Jessie stood on the cut, but his mind wandered time and again to Ituau’s message. Finally, to break his reverie, Jessie walked down to the ring where Hamoi had first brushed off the layer of dust. Jessie scrubbed a hand over the metal, revealing the carvings in the ring. He removed a meter of fine debris and discovered the entire surface was decorated in the elaborate symbols.
Fascinated by the alien markings, Jessie climbed back to the lookout position and picked up some instruments and tools the team had deposited. When he returned to the ring, he hopped over it to examine the inner portion. He scrubbed away another section. The writing was on both sides of the ring, and Jessie collected recordings of the markings.
Leaning over the ring, Jessie examined the slot that ran along the top of the ring. Above all things, this mystified him. If they had found debris in and out of the ring that signified a dome, he could have imagined that the slot was where the panels fitted, although it was extremely narrow. He sat his mass spectrometer on top of the ring and sorted through a tool bag. He was intent on removing some of the dust and discovering how deep the slot ran.
While Tully inspected the console, brushing away the dust and collecting imagery of the controls and markings, Hamoi was intrigued by the possibility of learning how the instruments received power. Examining the console’s rear panel, the tech noticed a 6-centimeter, circular fitting that projected low from the console’s rear panel. He got down on his knees to study it and was disappointed to find it was empty.
It was Hamoi’s habit to scratch the back of his head when he was mystified, and his hand automatically went there only to be reminded for the hundredth time, as he touched his helmet, that he was wearing a vac suit. He reached down to push himself erect, and his left hand hit something buried in the dust. He brushed away a length of it. To his amazement, it was a length of tubing of the same material that projected from the console’s back.