Nothing quite concentrates a man’s mind like the knowledge that he is to be hanged in four weeks; unless it is possibly the knowledge that he has sabotaged the very ship he sails in, and he—along with everyone else in it—will be hanged in three months. For while the execution may be farther away, the chances of a reprieve are infinitely lower.
Martin Springfield sat in the almost-deserted wardroom, a glass of tea at his hand, staring absently at the ceiling beams. A nautical theme pervaded the room; old oak panels walled it in, and the wooden plank floor had been holystone-polished until it gleamed. A silver-chased samovar sat steaming gently atop an age-blackened chest beneath a huge gilt-framed oil painting of the ship’s namesake that hung on one wall. Lord Vanek leading the cavalry charge at the suppression of the Robots’ Rebellion 160 years ago—destroying the aspirations of those citizens who had dreamed of life without drudge-labor in the service of aristocrats. Martin shivered slightly, trying to grapple with his personal demons.
It’s all my fault, he thought. And there’s nobody else to share it with.
Comfortless fate. He sipped at his glass, felt the acrid sweet bite of the rum underlying the bitterness of the tea. His lips felt numb, now. Stupid, he thought. It was too late to undo things. Too late to confess, even to Rachel, to try to get her out of this trap. He should have told her right at the beginning, before she came on board. Kept her out of the way of the Escha-ton’s revenge. Now, even if he confessed everything, or had done so before they tripped the patch in the drive kernel controllers, it would only put him on a one-way trip to the death chair. And although the sabotage was essential, and even though it wouldn’t kill anyone directly—
Martin shuddered, drained the glass, and put it down beside his chair. He hunched forward unconsciously, neck bowed beneath the weight of a guilty conscience. At least I did the right thing, he tried to tell himself. None of us are going home, but at least the homes we had will still be there when we’re gone. Including Rachel’s unlived-in apartment. He winced. It was next to impossible to feel guilt for a fleet, but just knowing about her presence aboard the ship had kept him awake all night.
The mournful pipes had summoned the ship to battle stations almost an hour ago. Something to do with an oncoming Septagonese carrier battle group, scrambled like a nest of angry hornets in response to the fiasco with the mining tugs. It didn’t make any difference to Martin. Somewhere in the drive control network, an atomic clock was running slow, tweaked by a folded curl of space-time from the drive kernel. It was only a small error, of course, but CP violation would amplify it out of all proportion when the fleet began its backward path through space-time. He’d done it deliberately, to prevent a catastrophic and irrevocable disaster. The New Republican Navy might think a closed timelike loop to be only a petty tactical maneuver, but it was the thin end of a wedge; a wedge that Herman said had to be held at bay. He’d made his pact with a darker, more obscure agency than Rachel’s. From his perspective, the UN DISA people merely aped his employer’s actions on a smaller scale—in hope of pre-empting them.
Good-bye, Belinda, he thought, mentally consigning his sister to oblivion. Good-bye, London. Dust of ages ate the metropolis, crumbled its towers in dust. Hello, Herman, to the steady tick of the pendulum clock on the wall. As the flagship, Lord Vanek provided a time signal for the other vessels in the fleet. Not just that; it provided an inertial reference frame locked to the space-time coordinates of their first jump. By slightly slowing the clock, Martin had ensured that the backward time component of their maneuver would be botched very slightly.
The fleet would travel forward into the light cone, maybe as much as four thousand years; it would rewind, back almost the whole distance—but not quite as far as it had come. Their arrival at Rochard’s World would be delayed almost two weeks, about as long as a rapid crossing without any of the closed timelike hanky-panky the Admiralty had planned. And then the Festival would—well, what the Festival would do to the fleet was the Festival’s business. All he knew was that he, and everyone else, would pay the price.
Who did they think they were kidding, anyway? Claiming they planned to use the maneuver just to reduce transit time, indeed! Even a toddler could see through a subterfuge that transparent, all the way to the sealed orders waiting in the admiral’s safe. You can ‘tfool the Eschaton by lying to yourself. Maybe Herman, or rather the being that hid behind that code name, would be waiting. Maybe Martin would be able to get off the doomed ship, maybe Rachel would, or maybe through a twist of fate the New Republican Navy would defeat the Festival in a head-to-head fight. And maybe he’d teach the horse to sing…
He stood up, a trifle giddily, and carried his glass to the samovar. He half filled it, then topped it up from the cut-glass decanter until the nostril-prickling smell began to waft over the steam. He sat down in his chair a bit too hard, numb fingertips and lips threatening to betray him. With nothing to do but avoid his guilt by drinking himself into a paralytic stupor, Martin was taking the easy way out.
Presently, he drifted back to more tolerable memories. Eighteen years earlier, when he was newly married and working as a journeyman field circus engineer, a gray cipher of a man had approached him in a bar somewhere in orbit over Wollstonecroft’s World. “Can I buy you a drink?” asked the man, whose costume was somewhere between that of an accountant and a lawyer. Martin had nodded. “You’re Martin Springfield,” the man had said. “You work at present for Nakamichi Nuclear, where you are making relatively little money and running up a sizable overdraft. My sponsors have asked me to approach you with a job offer.”
“Answer’s no,” Martin had said automatically. He had made up his mind some time before that the experience he was gaining at NN was more useful than an extra thousand euros a year; and besides, his employing combine was paranoid enough about some of its contracts to sound out its contractor’s loyalties with fake approaches.
“There is no conflict of interest with your current employers, Mr. Springfield. The job is a nonexclusive commission, and in any event, it will not take effect until you go freelance or join another kombinat.”
“What kind of job?” Martin raised an eyebrow.
“Have you ever wondered why you exist?”
“Don’t be—” Martin had paused in midsentence. “Is this some religious pitch?” he asked.
“No.” The gray man looked him straight in the eye. “It’s exactly the opposite. No god exists yet, in this universe. My employer wishes to safeguard the necessary preconditions for God’s emergence, however. And to do so, my employer needs human arms and legs. Not being equipped with them, so to speak.”
The crash of his glass hitting the floor and shattering had brought Martin to his senses. “Your employer—”
“Believes that you may have a role to play in defending the security of the cosmos, Martin. Naming no names”—the gray man leaned closer—“it is a long story. Would you like to hear it?”
Martin had nodded, it seeming the only reasonable thing to do in a wholly unreasonable, indeed surreal, situation. And in doing so, he’d taken the first step along the path that had brought him here, eighteen years later: to a drinking binge alone in the wardroom of a doomed starship, only weeks left to play out the end of its role in the New Republican Navy. Minutes, in the worst possible case.
Eventually, he would be reported lost, along with the entire crew of the Lord Vanek. Relatives would be notified, tears would be shed against the greater backdrop of a tragic and unnecessary war. But that would be no concern of his. Because—just as soon as he finished this drink—he was going to stand up and weave his way to his cabin and lie down. Then await whatever would follow over the next three months, until the jaws of the trap sprang shut.
It was hot and somewhat stuffy, in Rachel’s room, despite the whirring white noise of the ventilation system and the occasional dripping of an overflow pipe behind the panel next to her head. Sleeping wasn’t an option; neither was relaxation. She found herself wishing
for someone to talk to, someone who would have an idea what was going on. She rolled over on her back. “PA,” she called, finally indulging an urge she’d been fighting off for some time. “Where’s Martin Springfield?”
“Location. Ship’s wardroom, D deck.”
“Anyone with him?”
“Negative.”
She sat up. The crew were at their action stations: what on earth was Martin doing there on his own?
“I’m going there. Backdoor clause: as far as the ship is concerned, I am still in my cabin. Confirm capability.”
“Affirmative. Backdoor tracking master override confirmed.” They might have rebuilt the ship’s fire control and propulsion systems, but they’d left the old tab/badge personnel tracking grid in place—unused, probably, because it reduced the need for tyrannical petty officers. Rachel pulled on her boots, then stood up and grabbed the jacket that lay on the upper bunk. She’d take a minute to look presentable, then go and find Martin. She was irresponsible to leave her airtight cabin while the ship was cleared for action—but so was he. What was he thinking of?
She headed for the wardroom briskly. The access spaces of the warship were eerily quiet, the crew all locked down in airtight compartments and damage control stations. Only the humming of the ventilation system broke the silence; that, and the ticking of the wardroom clock as she opened the door.
The only occupant of the room was Martin, and he looked somewhat the worse for wear, slumped in an overstuffed armchair like a rag doll that had lost its stuffing. A silver-chased tea glass sat on the table in front of him, half-full of a brown liquid which, if Rachel was any judge of character, was not tea. He opened his eyes to watch her as she entered, but didn’t say anything.
“You should be in your cabin,” Rachel observed. “The wardroom isn’t vacuum-safe, you know.”
“Who cares?” He made a rolling motion of one shoulder, as if a shrug was too much effort. “Really don’t see the point.”
“I do.” She marched over and stood in front of him. “You can go to your cabin or come back to mine, but you are going to be in a cabin in five minutes!”
“Don’t remember signing a contractual… of employment with you,” he mumbled.
“No, you didn’t,” she said brightly. “So I’m not doing this in my capacity as your employer, I’m doing it as your government.”
“Whoa—” Rachel heaved. “But I don’t have a gummint.” Martin stumbled out of the chair, a pained expression on his face.
“The New Republic seems to think you have, and I’m the best you’ll find around here. Unless you’d prefer the other choice on offer?”
Martin grimaced. “Hardly.” He staggered. “Got some 4-3-1 in left pocket. Think I need it.” He staggered, fumbling for the small blister pack of alcohol antagonists. “No need to get nasty.”
“I wasn’t getting nasty; I was just providing you with an inertial reference frame for your own good. ‘Sides, I thought we were going to look out for each other. And I wouldn’t be do-ing my job if I didn’t get you out of here and into a cabin before someone notices. Drunkenness is a flogging offense, did you know that?” Rachel took him by one elbow and began gently steering him toward the door. Martin was sufficiently wobbly on his legs to make this an interesting experience; she was tall, and had boosters embedded in her skeletal muscles for just such events, but he had the three advantages of mass, momentum, and a low center of gravity. Together, they described a brief drunkard’s walk before Martin managed to fumble his drug patch onto the palm of one hand, and Rachel managed to steer the two of them into the corridor.
By the time they reached her cabin, he was breathing deeply and looking pale. “In,” she ordered.
“I feel like shit,” he murmured. “Got any drinking water?”
“Yup.” She pulled the hatch shut behind them and spun the locking wheel. “Sink’s over there; I’m sure you’ve seen one before.”
“Thanks, I think.” He ran the taps, splashed water on his face, then used the china cup to take mouthful after mouthful. “Damned alcohol dehydration.” He straightened up. “You think I should have more sense than to do that?”
“The thought had crossed my mind,” she said drily. She crossed her arms and watched him. He shook himself like a bedraggled water rat and sat down heavily on Rachel’s neatly folded bunk.
“I needed to forget some things very badly,” he said moodily. “Maybe too badly. Doesn’t happen very often but, well, being locked up with nobody for company but my own head isn’t good for me. All I get to see these days are cable runs and change schematics, plus a few naive young midshipmen at lunch. That spook from the Curator’s Office is hanging around all the time, keeping an eye on me and listening to whatever I say. It’s like being in a fucking prison.”
Rachel pulled out the folding chair and sat on it. “You’ve never been in prison, then. Consider yourself lucky.”
His lips quirked. “You have, I suppose? The public servant?”
“Yeah. Spent eight months inside, once, banged up for industrial espionage by an agricultural cartel. Amnesty Multinational made me a prisoner of commerce and started up a trade embargo: that got me sprung pretty quick.” She winced at the memories, grey shadows of their original violent fury, washed out by time. It wasn’t her longest stretch inside, but she had no intention of telling him that just yet.
He shook his head and smiled faintly. “The New Republic is like a prison for everyone, though. Isn’t it?”
“Hmm.” She stared through him at the wall behind. “Now you mention it, I think you could be stretching things a bit far.”
“Well, you’ll at least concede they’re all prisoners of their ideology, aren’t they? Two hundred years of violent suppression hasn’t left them much freedom to distance themselves from their culture and look around. Hence the mess we’re in now.” He lay back, propping his head against the wall. “Excuse me; I’m tired. I spent a double shift on the drive calibration works, then four hours over on Glorious, troubleshooting its RCS oxidant switching logic.”
“You’re excused.” Rachel unbuttoned her jacket, then bent down and slid off her boots. “Ow.”
“Sore feet?”
“Damned Navy, always on their feet. Looks bad if I slouch, too.”
He yawned. “Speaking of other things, what do you think the Septagon forces will do?”
She shrugged. “Probably track us the hell out of here at gunpoint, while pressing the New Republic for compensation. They’re pragmatists, none of this babble about national honor and the virtues of courage and manly manhood and that sort of thing.”
Martin sat up. “If you’re going to take your boots off, if you don’t mind—”
She waved a hand. “Be my guest.”
“I thought I was supposed to be your loyal subject?”
She giggled. “Don’t get ideas above your station! Really, these damned monarchists. I understand in the abstract, but how do they put up with it? I’d go crazy, I swear it. Within a decade.”
“Hmm.” He leaned forward, busy with his shoes. “Look at it another way. Most people back home sit around with their families and friends and lead a cozy life, doing three or four different things at the same time—gardening, designing commercial beetles, painting landscapes, and bringing up children, that sort of thing. Entomologists picking over the small things in life to see what’s twitching its legs underneath. Why the hell aren’t we doing that ourselves?”
“I used to.” He glanced up at her curiously, but she was elsewhere, remembering. “Spent thirty years being a housewife, would you believe it? Being good God-fearing people, hubby was the breadwinner, two delightful children to dote over, and a suburban garden. Church every Sunday and nothing—nothing—allowed to break with the pretense of conformity.”
“Ah. I thought you were older than you looked. Late-sixties backlash?”
“Which sixties?” She shook her head, then answered her own rhetorical question: “Twenty-sixties. I was
born in forty-nine. Grew up in a Baptist family, Baptist town, quiet religion—it turned inward after the Eschaton. We were all so desperately afraid, I think. It was a long time ago: I find it hard to remember. One day I was forty-eight and the kids were at college and I realized I didn’t believe a word of it. They’d gotten the extension treatments nailed down by then, and the pastor had stopped denouncing it as satanic tampering with God’s will—after his own grandfather beat him at squash—and I suddenly realized that I’d had an empty day, and I had maybe a million days just like it ahead of me, and there were so many things I hadn’t done and couldn’t do, if I stayed the same. And I didn’t really believe: religion was my husband’s thing, I just went along with it. So I moved out. Took the treatment, lost twenty years in six months. Went through the usual Sterling fugue, changed my name, changed my life, changed just about everything about me. Joined an anarchist commune, learned to juggle, got into radical antiviolence activism. Harry—no, Harold—couldn’t cope with that.”
“Second childhood. Sort of like a twentieth-century teenage period.”
“Yes, exactly—” She stared at Martin. “How about you?”
He shrugged. “I’m younger than you. Older than most everyone else aboard this idiotic children’s crusade. Except maybe the admiral.” For an instant, and only an instant, he looked hagridden. “You shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be here.”
She stared at him. “You’ve got it bad?”
“We’re—” He checked himself, cast her a curious guarded look, then started again. “This trip is doomed. I suppose you know that.”
“Yes.” She looked at the floor. “I know that,” she said calmly. “If I don’t broker some sort of cease-fire or persuade them not to use their causality weapons, the Eschaton will step in. Probably throw a comet made of antimatter at them, or something.” She looked at him. “What do you think?”
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