by Jaine Fenn
Taro felt anything but tired. ‘So you’ve been on this ship before, then?’ he asked.
‘Yes, although it was some time ago.’ She straightened and pointed to one of the doors. ‘The spare cabin is through there.’
Taro felt like he was being sent to his room . . . except she wasn’t sending him, was she? She was just asking him. If she really wanted him to go away, he wouldn’t be given any choice in the matter. He decided to risk it. ‘Actually I thought I’d look around. If Jarek won’t object.’
Nual looked up at him and smiled. ‘I’m sure he won’t.’ After a moment she added, ‘I am sorry I did not tell you about Jarek. I never expected to meet him again, so I didn’t see the need. He is a good man, Taro.’
Her apology threw him. ‘Yeah, I know: he didn’t have to help us.’ In fact Taro suspected he was already regretting his offer. ‘I was wondering, though, about him and Elarn.’
‘What about them?’
‘You said something about her forgiving him, and he wasn’t in her will, even though he’s her brother. Whatever they fell out over, it must’ve been pretty major.’
Nual looked away. ‘It was,’ she said.
‘D’you know what it was then?’
‘Aye,’ she said, ‘I do. It was me.’ She turned her attention back to the tech, and Taro took the hint. He felt horribly confused: annoyed at Nual and Jarek for leaving him out, and at himself for being annoyed, and for reminding Nual about bad stuff in her past.
After a few moments he decided to follow his first plan and explore the ship. He found the spare cabin, and Jarek’s - it was obvious which was which from the differing levels of mess - and he found where to wash and where to shit and where a whole load of stuff was stored. The only door that didn’t open when he approached was the one halfway down the corridor between the main room and what he now realised was the airlock.
He went back to Nual, who told him it was the cargo-hold. He didn’t really need to see it, but Nual added, ‘I will ask Jarek to put you on the ship’s security system. Wait there, I’ll see if he can do it now.’
She stood up, stretched, and flew up the ladder, disappearing into the bridge. After a moment she called back down, ‘Taro, go up to the iris scanner on the cargo-hold door and look into it for a minute. It’s the little green light.’
Taro did as she said. ‘Nothing’s happening,’ he muttered to himself, then, ‘Oh wait—’ as the door opened.
The emptiness of the hold was quite a contrast to the rest of the ship, and the air was cold enough that his breath steamed. As the door closed behind him he turned in panic, until he spotted the iris-scanner on this side and proved he could open it again. Then he had a look around.
From the shelving around the sides, the hooks welded to the floor and ceiling, and the straps, Taro guessed Jarek usually carried a fair amount of stuff, though he couldn’t actually see anything that looked like cargo. Further round he found a much bigger door on the outside wall, next to which were the only two items being transported. One was a stasis chamber, or comabox, as the tourists they’d met had called it. The ones they’d used on the starliners had been smaller and smarter than this, more like sealed-in techno-beds. They’d had to sign waivers, due to the tiny risk that they might wake up with brain damage, or even not at all, but Nual had assured him that stasis was a better option than being conscious in shiftspace. Looked like Jarek only had the one; he wondered what would happen when the time came to make a transit.
The other item was a box about a metre square. The screen on the side sprang to life when Taro touched it, displaying some sort of listing. He sat cross-legged in front of the box and traced the words with one finger. Several were repeated: they weren’t ones he knew, but they weren’t that long either, so with a bit of time he should be able to work them out—
‘You can take a look if you like.’
Taro jumped, banging his knee on the box. He thought briefly about standing up as normal, then flexed his legs just so to activate his flight implants, uncurled and rose to float a little above the floor. He looked down at Jarek, trying to pretend he hadn’t been startled. ‘I thought you were getting us out of here.’
‘We’re on our way to the beacon. It’ll be a few hours yet, so I thought I’d come and see how you were settling in. You’ll probably want to get some sleep soon, given it’s after midnight local time.’
Taro had expected to feel the ship take off, though when he thought about it that didn’t make sense. ‘Won’t they be suspicious, what with you cutting and running like this?’
‘Possibly. I’m relying on being gone before anyone I haven’t bribed works out we were at the cliff-house.’
‘Gone where?’
‘Initially, to the nearest hubpoint. That’ll make us harder to follow. ’
‘Fair enough.’ He knew what a hubpoint was, at least - they’d changed starliners at one of these artificial environments in deep space; it was where the main shipping lanes met. From their brief stopover Taro got the impression that hubpoints were bustling, busy places, but not exactly glamorous or that interesting. He’d had a moment of paranoia there when he reckoned one of the officials had paid them rather too much attention. Nual hadn’t picked up anything from the man, so he’d probably imagined it. Whatever, when it came down to it, Taro was up for anything that made them more difficult to trace. He nodded towards the cargo box, settling back to the floor as he did so - being able to fly was never gonna stale. ‘You said I could have a look?’
‘Sure, if you like.’ Jarek thumbed the lock to open the box. Inside were several packages, wrapped in cushioning material. He got one out and unwrapped it carefully. ‘It won’t open, for obvious reasons,’ he said as he passed it to Taro.
The box had a transparent window in the lid, with a screen next to it. The item was displayed on a dark-coloured cloth, lit by a light built into the box. It was a pendant, a cross like some Salvatines wore, though this one had arms all the same length, and was made out of thick twists of wire that looked like they needed a good clean. An uncut yellowish stone, like a blob of snot, sat in the centre.
‘The authentication’s excellent; that’s as sure as anything you’ll ever see,’ Jarek said, a little proudly.
Taro thought it was as much like tat as anything he’d ever see. Without thinking, he said, ‘Sure of what?’ ‘You read the list? It’s got the provenance on the box . . .’
For several heartbeats the two men stared at each other. Jarek opened his mouth again, but before he could speak, Taro said in his best Wanna make something of it? voice, ‘That’s right, I can’t read.’ Nual was teaching him, but until he’d met her he’d never had to do more than recognise the names of bars.
Jarek closed his mouth and nodded. ‘Ah. Sorry, I didn’t realise.’ He looked awkward, then continued, ‘It’s antique jewellery—a speculative cargo, but low-weight and non-perishable, so I thought it was a worthwhile investment. It’s from Old Earth.’
Taro had heard of Old Earth: an exclusive tour destination, according to one of the tourists on the starliner, who’d called it an absolute must for history buffs. ‘That’s where we came from, ain’t it, long ago? Humans, I mean.’
‘Yeah,’ said Jarek, ‘that’s right.’
Taro was working out what to ask next when Nual joined them.
Jarek turned to her. ‘Are we headline news then?’
‘Not as far as I could see. We’re almost out of range of Khathryn’s comnet.’ She frowned at the comabox. ‘Is there—? Is that occupied? ’
‘Ah, yes,’ Jarek said. ‘I meant to tell you about him when I got a moment.’
‘There’s someone in there already?’ Now Taro was confused.
‘Oh yes.’
‘Who?’ asked Nual.
‘I don’t actually know his name.’
‘Then what’s he doing in your comabox?’ asked Taro.
‘Well, you remember that Sidhe ship I told you about, the Setting Sun?’ Jarek drew a deep
breath. ‘He’s the pilot.’
CHAPTER SIX
Taro said, ‘I thought the Sidhe got trashed? Or is he one of the slaves you told us about?’
‘The pilot’s a normal human,’ replied Jarek. ‘Bastard worked with them willingly.’ He caught Nual’s look of confusion. ‘I’ll explain, but not here. I need to keep an eye on what’s happening in-system. Unless you’d rather get some sleep first?’
‘I want to know the whole situation before I rest,’ said Nual, and Taro nodded his agreement.
‘All right. We’ll talk on the bridge, if you two don’t mind sitting on the floor. Don’t worry, it’s a lot tidier than the rec-room.’
Jarek had left the shutters open a little, so the section of the dome immediately opposite the ladder showed the starfield ahead. Taro stared with rapt fascination.
‘Here,’ said Jarek, ‘I’ll open us up fully.’ He touched a button on the main console and the bridge lights dimmed further as the shutters round the rest of the hemispherical dome retracted, leaving them surrounded by the magnificence of space. Khathryn itself loomed behind them, a great circular vortex of blue and white.
Taro turned. ‘Whoa,’ he said, putting a hand up to his eyes.
‘I think the view may be a little too much,’ said Nual.
Jarek nodded, and dialled the shutters back to half. Typical tourist, he thought wryly, only used to seeing space in small, pretty doses. He plonked himself into his couch and spun round to face the others. ‘The floor’s clean, have a seat.’
Nual knelt and Taro sat cross-legged. Though Nual was in her mid-twenties now, he still saw in her the child he’d once known, and the boy probably wasn’t legally an adult on most worlds. He felt like a parent, about to give a stern lecture. He shook off the feeling.
‘I’m not going to tell you everything that happened on Serenein. Most of it isn’t relevant. But I want to help those people. They’ve been screwed over by the Sidhe, kept deliberately isolated, and they live short, shitty lives. That’s got to come to an end.’ He’d failed to save his sister, but now he had a whole world to save. And his months on Serenein felt more real to him than all his years as a freetrader. ‘It won’t be easy. The only organisations that operate throughout human-space are the Treaty Commission, the Salvatine Church and the Freetraders’ Alliance.
‘The Commission’s job is to stop disputes between systems getting out of hand - which isn’t that hard, given how few shiftships there are. And it makes sure interstellar trade runs smoothly. The Commission doesn’t have the experience - or the clout - to administer a whole new world. The Salvatines would send a mission to convert them before you can say ‘cultural genocide’, and given almost everyone on Serenein believes their world is flat and unique in the universe, not to mention ruled by goddesses who are in fact the Sidhe, this would be a disaster.
‘That leaves the Freetraders. They’re hardly altruists, but you can’t trade with a broken culture, and I’m one of theirs, so they’re my best bet.
‘However, right now all of this is hypothetical because there’s no beacon in the Serenein system.’
‘Wait,’ said Taro, ‘don’t you need a beacon to get anywhere? You said you slipstreamed this Sidhe ship to get to Serenein, but if you trashed the ship, how’d you get back out again?’
‘I went back to the system the Setting Sun had transited in from. You only need a beacon to leave shiftspace, not enter it; you have to program your transit-kernel with the pattern of the exit beacon—’
‘“Pattern of the beacon”? What’s that mean?’ asked Taro.
‘It’s hard to explain. Shiftspace isn’t really a place, it’s more a state.’
‘Right. I’ll take your word for that. So if you don’t need a beacon to go into shiftspace, just to get out again, does that mean you can start a transit from anywhere?’
‘In theory, yes - provided, you’ve, ahem, disabled the relevant safeties.’
‘Like you have, you mean.’
‘Quite.’
‘So why ain’t we gone already? Why’re we hanging round here waiting for trouble when we could just go straight to this hubpoint? ’
‘Because that kind of thing is seriously frowned upon. For a start, transiting near habitation - and that includes other ships - can seriously fuck them up. And I do mean seriously; slipstreaming is the least of it. Secondly, if two ships tried to use the same exit beacon at the same time then that would be very bad - as in major rift in spacetime bad. Beacons are powerful objects: that’s why there’s only one per system, and they’re at stable points in trailing orbits, a long way behind whichever world they serve.
‘What you’re meant to do is decelerate as you approach your local beacon. Once you’re close enough to avoid signal-lag - and we’re talking big distances here, tens of light-seconds - then you query it, and the exit beacon, to make sure you’ve got a clear run. When the beacons schedule you a window you can shift out from anywhere within the safe transit radius of that beacon.’
‘That sounds like a shitload of hassle.’
‘It is - but this way not only can local traffic control avoid accidents, they can keep tabs on everyone who shifts in and out of their system - and, of course, they charge extra for anyone who breaks the rules. Freetraders do make unscheduled transits if the cargo they’re running makes it worth the risk, but you’re looking at a hefty fine - not to mention all the unwelcome attention you’d attract. So right now we’re making our way out to Khathryn’s beacon as fast as we can get away with, and when we’re in range we’ll request a transit-window and leave in an orderly and entirely non-suspicious fashion.’
‘Makes sense,’ said Taro, ‘but what I don’t understand is how the Sidhe got to Serenein to start with if there ain’t no beacon there.’
‘Nor do I,’ Jarek admitted. ‘I did wonder if maybe there is a beacon, only it’s hidden, so when I scanned for it I didn’t pick it up. Either that, or the Sidhe have some other method of making transits.’ He’d suspected for some time they must have, and now he looked at Nual. ‘Any thoughts?’
She looked pensive. ‘To enter the void we - my sisters and I on the ship where I lived - we would go into unity. I believed we did this to protect ourselves from the agony of such travel, but for all I know it may have been the means to initiate it as well.’
Jarek didn’t bother asking if she knew more about shiftspace transits now she’d experienced a few outside ‘unity’ - they’d get to that whole dark mess soon enough. Implying she might not be sharing everything she knew wasn’t very constructive. ‘That’s what I thought. Well, a mere human like me certainly won’t get very far without beacons, but what I do have is lots of juicy files from the Setting Sun’s computer, though most of the damn stuff’s encrypted. And I’ve got the ship’s pilot. He’s wounded, but I picked up some medical supplies in Kendall’s Wharf. Which brings us back to our guest.’ Jarek had a sudden thought. ‘Actually, Nual, maybe you could take a look at him? See if there’s anything you can do to heal him - assuming all the stuff about Sidhe healing people is true.’
Nual and Taro exchanged a look - quite possibly more than a look - and then Nual said tightly, ‘I would prefer not to do that.’
What was all that about? ‘Fair enough. How about helping me question him? He’s unlikely to want to tell me much, but you’ve got other means at your disposal.’
Silence for a while, then, ‘Perhaps I could do that,’ said Nual. ‘What information would you wish to extract from him?’
Jarek didn’t like the signals he was getting. He sighed. ‘Listen, I’m not going to drag you - either of you - along with me if you don’t want to come. I can just drop you off somewhere, and we can go our separate ways.’ That would be the simplest solution; he wouldn’t have to change his solitary lifestyle to accommodate other people. But it would also mean casting loose his only allies in the cause he had committed himself to.
‘Are you asking,’ said Nual, ‘whether I am willing to join your crusade a
gainst the race of my birth?’
‘Yeah, I guess that’s exactly what I’m asking.’
‘I have turned my back on my people. They are my enemies now. They were willing to destroy an entire city just to kill me.’
‘No shit!’ said Jarek. ‘Which city?’
‘Mine,’ said Taro, his voice low. ‘Khesh City.’
‘I’m guessing they failed, or I’d have heard about it.’
‘Yeah,’ said Taro, ‘we stopped them.’ He gave Nual a look that held such solid belief, such love, that Jarek felt his cynical old heart soften for a moment.
‘How did Elarn fit into this?’ he asked.
‘Khesh City is built on a floating disc,’ said Nual. ‘The Sidhe hid something in your sister’s head, a sort of . . . mindbomb, that could be activated in a number of ways, including by her death. The mindbomb was able to disrupt the operations of the City and bring the disc down. In the end, we managed to limit the damage, but it was too late for Elarn.’