Contact

by Susan Grant

  For her, healing still seemed a long way off.

  She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and sat up. The handheld computer she’d stayed up too late studying slid off her stomach. She was determined to learn to read and speak Key without it. Maybe it was just her dogged sense of responsibility kicking in, driving her to stay up late cramming a new language into a mind scrambled with shock and grief. She’d soaked up Alliance history, too, until her head ached with it. But she didn’t see that she had a choice. She was in charge of this ragtag group; she had to be smart enough, aware enough, and fluent enough to communicate their needs to their rescuers, here and wherever they’d end up.

  Her bare feet hit the climate-controlled floor. Warmth worked its way up her legs. Automatically she reached for her little black date book and crossed off another day. Here on the Savior, there was a mind-boggling variety of technology available to tell time, but Jordan preferred the ritual of checking her Earth wristwatch and marking off the days in her pocket calendar with her ordinary Earth pen. And she’d keep doing so until one or the other failed. It was her own little ritual, using personal and familiar items from home. Somehow it had helped her to keep it together. Captains didn’t have the luxury of falling apart.

  A fresh round of singing reminded her that she’d overslept. She never overslept. Hunched over, she rubbed her eyes. She was surprised that no one had come looking for her this morning.

  Or likely someone had, like Natalie or Ben, and decided not to wake her. The past two weeks had been hell for her, and they knew it. Jordan had been inundated with questions, requests, demands, complaints, confessions, and hugs. Even dirty looks. The full spectrum of human need. What a change from the first week. During that horrible period, they’d asked little of her, and she’d passed on to Kào only a fraction of what information she had for him now. But in the past few days, the passengers’ veneer of shock had melted like ice cubes in hot tea. The minute Jordan stepped outside her quarters this morning she’d have to deal with it all over again. Today, tomorrow, and for as long as they were on this ship. And most likely beyond, when they settled in their new home, wherever that would be.

  Her father would have told her: Courage is accepting the challenge though it’s easier to give up.

  She got ready with the detached efficiency of a robot and stepped inside her tiny “cleansing booth.” A vaguely apple-scented wheeze signaled the start of the sterilization that passed for a shower. A waterless mist enveloped her. It was safe to breathe, Kāo had assured her, but she tried not to. If sedative gas could cause spontaneous abortions, who knew what sanitizing mist might do?

  As soon as the timed application of mist cut off, she picked through the contents of her suitcase, a small black Travelpro Rollaboard that held two days’ worth of clothing, a pair of shoes, a hair dryer that was useless now, a paperback, and a makeup bag—routinely packed items that had transformed suddenly into treasured heirlooms: Wear them out and they were gone forever. No Earth-made items would replace them. Ever. And that was still so freaking hard to imagine. . . .

  Go numb, she told herself. It worked. And it was getting easier all the time. Sometimes she wondered if forcing yourself not to feel was like crossing your eyes: You could become stuck that way. But who was to say that permanent numbness was a bad thing? Who said she had to feel to fulfill her responsibilities as leader?

  She chose her usual outfit of jeans and a T-shirt, eternally clean from being run through a clothes sterilizer every evening. The aliens had provided all their guests with melon-colored jumpsuits, but no one wore them; they looked too much like prison outfits. Dry-brushing her hair turned it to frizz, but the vanity that caught her finger-combing gel through her blond curls seemed out of place, considering her circumstances—but she did it nonetheless. “You can’t stop treating yourself,” Natalie insisted. “Or you stop living.”

  Wrestling her unruly mop into a ponytail, Jordan took a deep breath to ready herself for the onslaught of demands. She shoved her feet into white Nike slip-ons and walked from her sleeping area into the chaos of Town Square.

  She found Ben sitting in the back row of floating seats at the prayer service. Her seat bounced gently as she sat, and she frowned, planting her feet on the ground. “I hate these chairs,” she grumbled to herself. They weren’t anchored to the floor. It was an odd reason not to like a piece of furniture, but she was afraid of heights, too. Yeah. Her. Scared of heights. A pilot. She’d spent the greater part of her life explaining that one to people. She didn’t understand why everyone was so surprised to hear that. There was a difference between flying and falling. When you sat strapped into an airplane seat behind a closed window, it was nothing like peering over the edge of a tall building or climbing up, up, up the rungs of a high diving board. Her stomach turned to ice and her legs to rubber just thinking about it. Her older brother John, in his relentless teasing, told everyone that her desire to fly had been downloaded into her body by mistake, because it didn’t match anything else in her personality. He swore that somewhere there was a kindergarten teacher who looked like Chuck Yeager and hated airplanes.

  John. . . . Her heart turned over, and she stared harder at her clipboard. She had no doubt that her fire-chief brother had spent his last moments rescuing everyone he could. The thought conjured the familiar ache in her throat. Quickly she willed herself into numbness.

  Awkwardly she adjusted her fanny on her chair and scooted closer to Ben. “Hi,” she whispered.

  “Hi.” He didn’t glance up from his meditation.

  She closed her eyes, seeking her own. But her weak concentration was too-easily shattered by a clicking noise.

  She opened an eye. Natalie was striding toward her on high-heel sandals, her multi-braided ponytail bouncing behind her. A sheaf of paper was wedged under one arm, and she’d stuck a pen behind one ear. She meant business. And there was nowhere for Jordan to run.

  The flight attendant hopped onto an empty chair and glided over. In a gesture of futility, Jordan shut her eyes.

  “It won’t work, hon,” Natalie said under her breath so as not to interrupt either Father Sugimoto, the soft-spoken Hawaiian Catholic priest, or the effusive black minister they called Pastor Earl. “I saw you look at me.”

  A Post-it note held delicately between two red-lacquered fingernails landed in Jordan’s lap. “I added more names,” Natalie said. “Karen Hoskins says she’s missing a gold chain. Let’s see—ah, Katherine Schlem, she wants the airplane searched for a lost earring. And Janice Bennett had a tote bag of paperbacks with her and can’t find it—says she needs to read to stay sane.”

  “We all need something,” Jordan grumbled, fighting both inadequacy and irritation as she scanned the list of personal needs, all of them critical to the originators. Fifteen new requests. Yesterday’s list had thirty. And there’d be more as people came out of their shock to discover that they’d lost possessions onboard the airplane or couldn’t find items that should have been brought to New Earth when Kào’s helpers retrieved luggage from the cargo compartments.

  Search airplane—PERSONALLY! She scribbled the note into her date book. She hadn’t seen the 747 since that first day. She had no idea of its condition. Of course, an airliner was useless to them now, but she had a proprietary interest in the craft all the same. “Everything else is from yesterday, right, Nat?”

  “Yeah. I just thought you’d like them written down.”

  “My brain’s a trampoline.” Jordan agreed. “If it’s not written down, it bounces off.”

  Natalie rubbed her arm in a caring caress. “You got that right,” she said softly. “Hey, I’m giving pedicures later. Stop by and treat yourself.” Wearing her no-arguments expression, she gathered her paperwork and moved on to her other duties.

  The woman never sat still. Maybe her defense mechanism was staying busy so she wouldn’t have time to think. Jordan’s gaze slid to the chair next to her. Ben sat hunched over, his face cradled in his hands, his lips moving a
s he muttered fervent prayers. Now, there was a guy who thought too much.

  A movement in the corner of her eye pulled her attention from Ben. Ian Dillon, the redheaded Irishman. It was obvious that he was waiting for her, and she used it as an excuse to sneak away from the prayer service before it ended, moving her a few steps closer to her secluded corner briefing room before everyone was released.

  As she approached, Dillon gave her a concerned perusal. “You look tired.”

  “Find me one person who doesn’t.”

  “I don’t think I could.”

  “I’m not sleeping well,” she confessed. Dillon was the least needy of everyone onboard, and the least likely to panic at any perceived weakness on her part. If life had stayed normal and she’d met him on Earth, she might have thought about dating him. But life wasn’t normal anymore, and starting up a relationship was the furthest thing from her mind.

  “Nightmares?” he commiserated.

  “No. Dreams.” Of Boo. Of horses, meadows, and sunlit glades in the Rockies. Of all the things lost to her forever. She forced a smile. “So, what’s up, Dillon?”

  “I need your blessing.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to ask Father for that.” Jordan glanced over her shoulder. Father Sugimoto caught her eye and cocked a brow. Guiltily she crossed herself, to his obvious satisfaction. What did she expect after admitting to the priest that she was raised Catholic and then sneaking away from Mass?

  Dillon chuckled and beckoned for her to follow. “Not for this I won’t. I’ve embarked on an exploration venture of sorts. I want to show you what I’ve found before I proceed any further.”

  Before they could move, the prayer services ended, sending throngs of passengers in search of Jordan.

  “Captain,” a woman called out as she rose and limped toward them, a fifty-pound hitchhiker attached to her leg. A little girl, a year or so younger than Boo, clung to the woman’s thigh. “Hi, Lydia Funneman here. And that’s Katie.” She smiled indulgently at her child and ruffled her hair. “The kids are going to hate me for asking, but have you found out anything more about us getting fresh fruit and vegetables?”

  “I’m working on it. The medics were worried about food allergies.” Jordan took out her date book and to her growing list she added, Ask about diet! “I’ll be following up on it later today, Lydia,” she assured the woman, who smiled and moved on.

  Next a group of five women crowded in Jordan’s direction. She was overwhelmed with a desire to flee, to tell everyone to fend for themselves. But it wasn’t that she didn’t want to help; she just needed a break. Inspiration hit. “Did I see you ladies at yesterday’s two-mile speed walk?” she asked. “No?”

  That stopped them. Jordan flexed her biceps. She had begun bullying everyone to get in shape. Who knew what conditions awaited them wherever they were going? “ ‘Stay strong and survive,’ right? Oh, look. Over there, at the far wall. Another walking group is forming. Give me a few minutes, and I’ll join you.”

  The women looked less than enthusiastic and turned away from her. Jordan grabbed Dillon’s elbow. “Let’s go.” A businessman in a flowered shirt waved at her. She pretended not to see him. “Dillon, help. Start talking to me nonstop, as if whatever you’re telling me is the most important thing to our survival.”

  “It may very well be.” He took her by the arm and swept her forward at high speed. It worked: everyone let them pass by.

  He led her to the community computer, sleek and inset into the molded wall. A floater chair bobbed next to it. Empty food containers and sanitizer wipes indicated that Dillon was spending a lot of time here. “I’m in,” he said, bouncing onto the chair.

  She squinted at the screen. The alien workstation was linked to the shipboard computer. The letters and numbers still looked like gibberish to her when taken in all at once. “What do you mean, you’re in?”

  “In the computer.”

  “But they gave us the computer. We’re supposed to use the language program and the educational database.”

  “The educational database looks quite fine, actually. But look. I just accessed a schematic of the ship.”

  “How?” She leaned over his shoulder. Like every computer she’d seen so far, this one had a screen that could be bent to fit any surface, even rolled up and shoved in a pocket. “Their stuff is nothing like we have on Earth.”

  “Ah, that is where you’re wrong. Their computer programs rely on the same small set of standard modules—forms to accept data to a program, files to keep the data in, calculations to transform that data, techniques to sort the data, forms to present the data to the user upon demand, the ability to present results in various graphics, and so on.”

  His freckled fingers smoothed over the flexible screen and found the keyboard, or what she guessed was the keyboard. He began typing, using the alien runes. “They’re on what’s similar to a network in Earth terms. It allowed me to get into the main computer.”

  “The main ship computer?”

  He nodded.

  “Good Lord,” she mumbled. She glanced nervously over her shoulder. What was the punishment for breaking and entering?

  “As expected, when I got there, the mainframe, I was located in an applications program. Just like on Earth, it’s all that’s needed to call up a veritable buffet of other applications. Which I have. I’ve been dining quite nicely all day.”

  “Yeah?” She leaned over his shoulder. “On what?”

  “Shipboard schematics,” Dillon said. “This is one of the decks. I’m not sure which, though.” His fingertips tapped away. The image changed. “And this—I think it’s a maintenance status page for that deck.”

  She was speechless. Dillon was a bloody genius, in his words, if he’d learned enough Key and was computer-adept enough to log on and wander into places that might not be intended for their viewing.

  “These are life-support readouts.” He frowned, typing faster. “Temperature . . . moisture content in the air. I’m better at reading Key than speaking it. And I’ve got my numbers down pat,” he added proudly.

  All around them, the chaos of a couple of hundred people in relatively close quarters simmered. But Jordan’s attention was riveted by Dillon’s fingers pitter-pattering over the glowing runes. Each keystroke brought up new images on the computer screen. Despite an obvious language and technology handicap here on the starship, Dillon was working the computer like a pro. She’d bet he was one of those lucky folks who tackled computers instinctively. “You said you worked for a high-tech company,” she prompted.

  “Network Global Technologies. In Dublin.” Regret he didn’t need to explain washed over his face. “Beautiful city, it was, Jordan.” He resumed typing.

  “Were you . . . a hacker?”

  “Hackers have an undeserved bad name,” he replied in an obvious non-answer. “Easily ninety percent of the information anyone wants is available for the taking. The difficult part is recognizing and analyzing it. Of the remaining ten percent, half can usually be inferred from the material you already have. There’s no greater fun than developing an understanding of a system and finally producing the skills and tools to defeat it.”

  “And you’re having the time of your life figuring it all out.” In a way, she envied him the distraction.

  His blue eyes sparkled. “For me, the process of ‘getting in’ is always more exhilarating than what I discover in protected files.”

  His excitement was contagious, a much-needed dose of optimism. “What was your job title at Global?”

  “Senior VP.”

  “Yeah, but what were you really?”

  He barely glanced up. “A spy.”

  “Get out of here.” All she could think of was 007. Ian Dillon didn’t look like James Bond. But he’d transformed a heart-starting device into a weapon and had hacked into a computer built by a civilization capable of light-speed space travel. One didn’t learn such skills in prep school. “Who’d you work for? The UK? Scotland Yard? The
Russian Mafia?” she threw in for good measure.

  “Nothing that tedious, no. My chessboard of intrigue was industry—the computer industry. I checked up on the bad guys. And when the bad guys hired me, well, I’d get them information on the good guys.”

  “You spied for both sides?” She wasn’t sure if she liked that.

  “Money has a way of erasing borders and loyalties.” He said it as if the concept was one she’d relate to or understand. “It cost a pretty pence, though, for what we could do.”

  “I’m sure it did.” Jordan tapped her chin with her index finger. Dillon reminded her of her two pet cats, loyal because they wanted to be, not because they had to be. “While you’re exploring, see if you can find out anything about our resettlement plans. It’s been over two weeks, and I know nothing. Kào says that’s because his government hasn’t decided where to put us. But sometimes I think he’s as in the dark about things as we are. But unlike him, we’ve got to understand what our future involves, even if it means digging for the facts ourselves. I think you may have just made that possible.”

  Dillon went back to work. His mouth remained in a smile. Obviously, he was pleased with her encouragement. “Ah, look,” he murmured in his leprechaun-like brogue. “More deck diagrams. Next I’ll figure out where our rooms are in relation to the rest of the ship. We could use a map.”

  “We sure could. Be careful, that’s all I ask. I don’t want us getting into trouble before we know what ‘trouble’ means to these people.”

  “Darth Vader’s here!” It was Christopher’s usual delighted warning cry. He sang it out every time his “spaceman” showed up at the door.

  “Speaking of trouble.” Dillon jerked his hands away from the computer, and the flexible monitor snapped into its container like a window shade on a roller. Folding his hands on his lap, he began whistling an innocuous, I’m-so-innocent little tune.

  With that proverbial hand-caught-in-the-cookie-jar feeling, Jordan turned around. At the far end of the common room, Kào Vantaar-Moray stood in the doorway, his hands clasped behind his back.