The Dreaming Stars

by Tim Pratt

  “Something like that,” Callie said.

  “I assume you finished your mission?”

  “The pirate fleet has been eliminated. My crew, and some survivors of a wreck we found, took up residence in the old pirate base.” She shrugged. “It’s safe to reveal that we’re alive now, so here I am. I’m really sorry you were worried. I didn’t expect you to hold a memorial for me.”

  “At least now you can be the guest of honor.” He looked down. “I’m very sorry for everything you lost. I know Meditreme was your home, after this wasn’t any more.”

  “I’ve got some practice at losing things,” Callie said. “But thanks.”

  “I’m glad Stephen and the others, at least, are all right. I know how much your crew means to you.”

  “They’re my family,” she said simply.

  “And… Elena?”

  “What about her?”

  He raised one eyebrow, something she’d always found painfully endearing, and it made her heart ache a little now too.

  “She’s… I don’t know what we are, really. Besides in love, which you and I both know is necessary but not sufficient. We’re figuring it out together. I think you’d like her. She gets along really well with Shall.”

  “Shall?”

  “Michael Mark II. The Michael Bot. Robo-Michael. Especially after the divorce, it got awkward, calling him by your name, so we started calling him Shall.”

  “An understandable innovation,” he said. “Do give my digital doppelganger my best.”

  “Will do.” She swiveled back and forth in her chair. “So. Um. How are things with you?”

  “Since I’m no longer in mourning, I’d say they’re looking up.”

  “How’s the family business?”

  He chuckled. “Since when are you interested in that?”

  She lied breezily. “Oh, I just noticed your horrible uncle Reynauld wasn’t here. Is he busy with Taliesen now that the terraforming project is done? Or is it just that he never liked me?”

  “Why not both?” Michael said. He leaned back in his chair. “Since you mention it, yes, Taliesen is keeping Uncle Reynauld very busy, though not for good reasons.”

  Callie tried not to look too interested, or too worried. Surely if the redoubtable utopian artsy-fartsy scrappy pioneers in the Taliesen system had been attacked by a race of heretofore unknown advanced genocidal aliens, Michael would have led with that information. “What’s going on?”

  “Various disasters. A team of surveyors went missing, and the people who went looking for them also went missing. Reynauld sent a crew of our special auditors to find out what was going on… and they never returned, either.”

  “Huh.” The special auditors were very good, within their limitations. “Pirates?”

  “It’s hard to believe so. The company has mining rights in the asteroid field out there, but the project is in the early stages. They’ve only just begun setting up crew quarters and equipment, so there’s not much for pirates to prey on, unless they specialize in stealing extruded plastic and plasma drills.”

  “A rival company, maybe?” Callie said. “Or wildcat miners taking out your people, maybe even stealing the equipment to help their own operations?” Or the Axiom.

  “It’s possible,” Michael said.

  “So send a hundred mercenaries to kick their asses,” she said.

  Michael sighed. “Would that it were so easy. Reynauld took a lot of risks investing so heavily in that system, and though the investment looks poised to pay off, his position is delicate. He’s kept the problem quiet so far, and only confided in me about it, but if word gets out that they’ve lost that many personnel, including a team of auditors? It would make his position more precarious. He could even lose his place on the board.”

  “Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy,” Callie said. “So you need someone capable and discreet to investigate, huh?”

  Michael chuckled. “You just came back from the dead, and now you’re angling for a job?”

  “There are precious few money-making opportunities in the grave. It’s better for my mind and mood if I have a job, and neither one of us wants Ashok to be bored and unemployed.”

  “True enough.” He swiveled back and forth in his chair, thoughtful. “Reynauld did reach out to me about hiring a freelance team to investigate the disappearances discreetly. It’s so hard to know who you can trust – any company that contracts regularly with Imperative corporations is going to have spies and moles reporting to rival corporations, after all, and Uncle Reynauld has no shortage of enemies.”

  “I’ve always said the Jovian Imperative is a sack full of snakes.”

  “I thought you said it was a bucket full of scorpions?”

  “The bucket is inside the sack. Keep up.”

  He smiled, which was as good as a laugh from most people. “You know, that’s not a bad idea, Callie. You’re discreet, at least professionally. You won’t go tattling to the board, whatever you find out. And I do trust you.”

  “Glad to hear it. I’m the one in this room who’s never betrayed a trust, after all.”

  He winced. “A fair hit, and a palpable one. Let me continue making amends by helping fund your resurrection. Uncle Reynauld has a certain amount of discretion in his budget, so it should be worth your while.”

  Callie smiled. She’d planned to ask Michael for favors, which galled her, but now they were just negotiating a benefits package, and she was very comfortable with that. “Maybe you could help me out with another thing, too.”

  “I live to serve.”

  “My crew is pretty well-settled on Glauketas now. As much as I enjoy the outlaw life, I’d rather not have my new home get eminent-domained by the Imperative, or blown up by a passing gunship because it’s still flagged as an illegal haven of slime and villainy in some security contractor’s database.”

  “Yes, I can see how you might crave a little security.”

  “You set up that holding company for me when we bought the White Raven, right? I’d like you to get Glauketas added to the Machedo Corporation’s asset sheet.”

  “You’re taking squatter’s rights a bit far, aren’t you? Or did you happen to have the pirate queen sign over the deed?”

  Callie snorted. “Please. Like the pirates bothered with a paper trail. Nobody owns the asteroid, officially. I had Shall dig into the records. Glauketas used to belong to a minor mining concern incorporated under the auspices of the Trans-Neptunian Authority, but the company dissolved without reassigning the rights, and since the company and the polity that held its paperwork have both ceased to exist, the asteroid has no legal owner, and since it’s already been modified for human habitation, it’s not just an asteroid, it’s a derelict station – so I claim it by law of salvage.”

  “Hmm. Salvage laws in the Imperative aren’t quite as liberal as they were in the Trans-Neptunian Authority–” She glared, and Michael held up his hands. “Yes, all right. I’ll take care of it. The company lawyers can register it as one of your assets. Since Glauketas is beyond the Imperative’s borders, it’s not subject to most of our laws, though. Your legal status will just keep other Imperative concerns, or the government, from making claims on the asteroid. Don’t expect any help from our emergency services or security forces.”

  “I’m all the cops I need, thanks. I have one other request.”

  “You’re the one who asked me for a job, you know,” he said.

  “Please. I’m the answer to your horrible uncle’s prayers. I’ve got a time refugee I rescued, Uzoma, staying with some friends of Stephen’s now. They were a brilliant physicist and mathematician and starship engineer – five hundred years ago. They’ve got the brains and dedication and drive to excel, but they’re way behind on the literature. They were still using astrolabes and sextants or whatever back in their day, probably. Uzoma wants to go back to school. I owe them – I’d probably be dead without them. I want to help.”

  “Uzoma wants to attend JIU Ganymede, I sup
pose? It’s got the best physics and engineering school in the Imperative.”

  “That’s the one.”

  Michael nodded. “I can call the dean. She’s an old friend, and we bought her a new administration building last year. I don’t suppose this time refugee left behind a bank account that’s been gathering compound interest for five centuries?”

  “Nope.”

  “All right. We’ll handle tuition, too. How does the Kalea Machedo Scholarship for Displaced Persons sound?”

  Callie winced. “Make it the Meditreme Station Memorial Scholarship, how about that?”

  Michael nodded. “Consider it done.”

  “I have to run the job by the crew, but I’m sure they’ll be on board.” Especially since it was just an excuse to pursue their real mission of fighting the Axiom.

  “Who could say no to you?” Michael said. “Should we go take part in the celebration of your life? Since you’re alive to celebrate it, and all?”

  “I suppose slipping away without a word would be ungracious.” They rose, and started toward the door.

  “I really am… joyful,” Michael said. “I know it’s too late for us, and I accept that, but I’m glad it’s not too late for you to… to live. To have a good life.”

  She groaned. “This estrangement would all be a lot easier on me if you were a complete piece of shit instead of just a partial one, Michael.”

  “I’ll try to live down to your expectations more in the future,” he said.

  Chapter 9

  Elena went out to the garden, marveling at the sight of flowers growing out of the ground, something she hadn’t seen in months of conscious time and centuries of real-time. Sure, the dirt was probably imported at great expense, the flowers were doubtless genetically engineered, and the sunshine was artificial full-spectrum light – but it felt like being outside, even if the low gravity prevented it from feeling like Earth. She sat on an ornamental bench and looked at the great silver blossoms bobbing on long stems, and listened to the slow burble of a nearby fountain. She started thinking about life in low gravity, and how animals would adapt to these conditions – did they have squirrels? butterflies? – so she was surprised when someone sat down on the bench beside her. Michael.

  Elena looked at him sidelong, and supposed she could see what Callie had liked about him, at least superficially: he was handsome, and smiled like he knew interesting secrets, and had a casual ease and confidence that could be appealing. “So,” he said. “You and Callie.”

  He sounded exactly like Shall, and Shall was probably Elena’s best friend in the galaxy apart from Callie, so it felt natural to talk to him casually. Too natural. Probably she’d better be careful. “Me and Callie,” she agreed.

  “How did you two meet?”

  “She found me in a glass coffin and brought me back to life.”

  Michael chuckled. “Very fairy-tale. But really.”

  “Really. I’m from the twenty-second century. I was in cryo-sleep, on a wrecked ship, and Callie and her crew rescued me. We went through some… rough experiences… and got pretty close, pretty quickly. We’ve been working on getting closer.”

  Michael crossed his legs. “That’s remarkable. It’s like something from a story. A woman from the distant past falls in love with a hard-bitten space captain.”

  “I don’t bite her that hard,” Elena said.

  Michael burst out with a brief but genuine-seeming laugh. “That’s very good. You have to be quick to keep up with Callie.”

  “You two were together for a long time, weren’t you?”

  “Ten years from first date to finalizing the divorce, more or less. Eight of them were even good.”

  “Any tips for me? I really care about Callie, and I don’t want to mess this up.”

  “My first piece of advice, obviously, is don’t have sex with several other people behind her back. That is an approach that historically has bad outcomes.”

  “That’s a really useful note, Michael.”

  “I am a fount of wisdom.” He looked domeward, thinking. “I can only say… Callie doesn’t trust easily. She never did, and what I did… made things worse. If she trusts you, cherish that. She’ll do anything for you, as long as she knows the two of you are in this together. But if you betray her, lie to her, mislead her… she’ll never forgive you.”

  “No pressure there.”

  “It’s not quite as bad as I make it sound. You can make mistakes. Just talk to her. Admit your errors. Include her in your process. Don’t make her feel like a fool.” He shifted on the bench, glancing at her and then looking away, focusing on the flowers instead. “Callie is an ideal captain because she’s always prepared for catastrophe – when something goes wrong, she doesn’t waste time thinking about how unfair it is, or how unlikely, or what could have been done to prevent it. She just figures out how best to address the problem. She’s practical, and pragmatic… but she’s also a romantic. She wouldn’t admit it, but she loves plying the spaceways, visiting new places, seeing new vistas, having extraordinary experiences. She gets bored easily.”

  “So the advice is, don’t be boring?”

  “I might phrase it more like, ‘Don’t worry about surprising her.’ Don’t be afraid to try new things or suggest new adventures. I realized too late that she was never going to settle down on Ilus – this world is just too small for her. I was too small for her, and I knew it. I hated that, but it’s true. Have you joined her crew?”

  “Not in any kind of official capacity, but I’m tagging along, and helping where I can.”

  He nodded. “I think that’s the only way we could have worked. If I’d been out there, with her, growing and changing by her side, who knows? So I stayed here, thinking I could be her home – the person and place she returned to. Instead, we grew apart, until the distance between us could be measured in light years. If you’re with her, out there, you have a better chance at keeping her than I ever did. Does that help?”

  Elena smiled. “I was asking more like, what kind of flowers does she like, and does she like poetry, and is it really important to her if people make a big deal about her birthday, but sure, this other stuff is good too.”

  “She likes alcohol more than flowers, she’s not much for poetry, and she doesn’t care about birthdays, but she likes anniversaries.”

  “Oh, no,” Callie said, and Elena turned to see her strolling into the garden with that light-footed low-gravity bounce in every step. “My ex and my current, talking about me. This isn’t at all literally exactly like a nightmare I’ve had.” She bumped Elena with her hip, and Elena obligingly scooted into Michael to make room for Callie to sit.

  “Michael was just telling me about all the times you did super embarrassing things,” Elena said. “I couldn’t believe the one about the low-gravity swimming pool and the tequila shots.”

  “A classic,” Michael murmured.

  “I must have blacked that one out,” Callie said. “You threw a good party, Michael. I’m sorry I spoiled it by not being dead.”

  “Your survival doesn’t really fit the theme, but I’ll let it pass.”

  “Do you mind if I talk to Elena for a bit? If you’re done conspiring against me.”

  “We would only conspire in your favor, Callie.” Michael rose, and gave Elena a small bow. “It was lovely to chat with you.”

  “Likewise.”

  He went back inside to the party, and Callie visibly relaxed once he was gone.

  “He seems nice,” Elena said.

  “He’s a good eighty-five, maybe even ninety percent nice. It’s that last few points that get him in trouble. He offered to help us out with Glauketas, though, getting us some legal status, and he’s going to set up Uzoma with a scholarship.”

  “That’s good! Was this all out of the kindness of his heart?”

  “Out of the depths of his guilt, really, but there is some pro quo to go with his quid. He wants to hire the White Raven for a job.”

  “Oh? What
kind?”

  She leaned closer to Elena. “You know the disappearances in the Taliesen system that Lantern mentioned? It’s not just the truth-tellers who vanished. Some employees from Michael’s company went missing, and the people the company sent to look for them never reported back, either. It might be accident, or sabotage, or pirates, but… put together with what Lantern said, it may be Axiom.”

  Elena shivered. “So we might be getting paid to fight the Axiom? That’s a bonus, at least. Usually we do it pro bono.”

  “Your ability to find the bright side is one of my favorite things about you. I think you’ll like Owain.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The terraformed planet in the Taliesen system.”

  Elena grabbed her arm. “We get to visit another planet? An actual planet with an actual atmosphere where actual humans live?”

  “Yes? Yes.”

  Elena bounced, rather dramatically due to the low gravity. She drifted back down to her seat, grinning. “Callie! I am from the past. We had Earth, and a space station or two, and a really sad little base on the moon. We did not go to other planets, except for a couple of trips to Mars, which is like walking to the corner store in astronomical terms. I was one of the first people who even got sent to another planet outside our system, and you know how that turned out. This here, Ganymede, is the only natural celestial body I have ever set foot on, besides the Earth. This is amazing.”

  “We may be eaten by space monsters.”

  “Yes, but before that happens, I will get to stand on another planet.” Elena snuggled in closer. “We should have sex here on Ganymede. And then we should have sex on Owain. We should collect various celestial bodies. I like collecting things.”

  Callie seemed a bit stunned, but not in a bad way. “I… yes. I approve of this plan.”

  Elena kissed her. She didn’t think keeping things exciting was going to be a problem, at least not for a good long while.

  Stephen went to a black dome district to shop for Sebastien’s medication (and, doubtless, some sacraments for himself), while Callie and Elena strolled around the market district, browsed in shops, and basically soaked up the pleasure of being among other people after long months of isolation. They passed by a commercial Hypnos parlor, and the holographic avatar of the expert system hailed them from the doorway. “Come experience a reality realer than real life!” it promised. “Sail the storms of Jupiter in our newest exobody sim! Ski the slopes of Sedna and compete in our Ice Olympiad multiplayer competition! Stalk the mean streets of the lost city of New York in the latest installment of the award-winning Midnight Noir series!”