Lily temporarily pushed aside the knowledge that she had been part of a sci-fi freak show to absorb this new information. Earth really ran out of oil. Once again, the hippies had been right.
“If I’ve been an exhibit for three years, wouldn’t people remember me?” she asked. “Someone’s going to put two and two together.”
“We’ve looked at that possibility,” a woman piped up. “The artifacts were loaned out in rotation. You were actually displayed only four times, for a week each time. The historical society was concerned about toxicity if you were moved incorrectly. If anyone looks into it, the official answer is your remains decomposed.” Lily made a face.
“As to who left you on Darcan-2, we’re working on that,” Kentz said. “Earth still has documentation, albeit limited, on the identities of those interred there. There isn’t a record of a Lily Stewart.” Catching the incredulous look on Lily’s face, he quickly added, “There aren’t a lot of records, anyway. You’ve got to understand, this was almost a thousand years ago.”
“I know,” Lily agreed. “I’m surprised that anything exists, actually. It was like that at home, whenever a field was dug up and they discovered an ancient burial ground.” She sighed. “I know it’s a long shot, but did you find out what happened to Lazarus Cryonics?”
Kentz shook his head.
“We’re working on the theory that you weren’t on Darcan-2 for long in the traditional sense,” he continued. “If the Nym are using time travel, they may have dropped you off there three years ago. As we’ve said, we’re unsure about this new technology.”
It sounded like a plausible theory, but Lily really wanted to know what had happened to the lab. Any media coverage on a small cryonics facility on the outskirts of Toronto was long gone. So was Toronto, for that matter. Lily’s research into Earth revealed that the only populated area was what had once been the North Pole for its more habitable climate, which was downright tropical in the summer.
Kentz interrupted her musings. “In light of the Nym activity, we would prefer to keep you in Fleet custody,” he said.
Lily nodded. “Captain Marska told me as much. But what do you mean by ‘prefer’?”
“It means you’re a free citizen of Commons space,” Rian explained. “Technically, you can’t be forced into doing anything. You’re not a criminal; you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. You’re free to travel through the galaxy when Fleet establishes an identity for you.” He caught her questioning look.
“Commander Marska,” snapped Kentz. He turned to Lily. “We can provide identification for you. While the Nym is our biggest concern, the media is a close second. We’ve done everything in our power to prevent them from knowing about you, but the story got out. We’re still conducting an investigation.” Almost simultaneously, every face around the table looked disgruntled at this betrayal. “Fleet is going to operate on schedule as though nothing has happened to deflect this incident as long as possible, and that means the Defiant is leaving when her repairs and upgrades are completed. Ordinarily we don’t permit civilians on patrol ships, but Commander Marska has pointed out that you’re getting settled there, and we’re offering you the choice between staying on board the Defiant for the time being, where it will set a course for Kevnar Station over the coming weeks and you will be settled there, or immediate custody at the base here. The Defiant will be transporting a science team en route to Kevnar.”
“What’s waiting for me at Kevnar Station?”
“We feel it prudent to keep you under Fleet protection indefinitely, and think it best if you were trained for a career,” Kentz said.
“What will I do here?”
“Work and re-establish yourself. There’s a very large non-military community here.”
“I hate to break it to you, but there’s not a lot I can do,” Lily said. “I have a history degree that’s even more useless here than it was at home, and I doubt my work experience is relevant.”
“What did you do?” He sat back in his chair and tented his fingertips again.
Was it just Lily, or did the guy actually seem interested? “I was the business manager at my family’s tree farm when I finished school,” she said. “I ran it until my father died. Then I worked as a receptionist at Lazarus, which I already told you about. I was planning on going into teaching.”
“Unfortunately, teaching isn’t an option,” the admiral said.
“I gathered that, and I’m still getting used to all the touchscreens and voice-activated everything. What about something in research?”
“We were thinking along the lines of an assistant position,” Kentz continued. “We have a list of Fleet-oriented careers that you can pick up and study for at your own time and pace, and you can be placed on a station. Commander Marska has suggested pharmacy and library assistant positions, although the library assistant would require quite a bit more study, a degree at the academy and more practical training given your lack of familiarity with current technology.”
“What about the pharmacy job?”
“Most pharm-techs study via correspondence. Many go on to a career as a pharmacist or nurse, but that’s getting ahead of ourselves.”
And probably impossible for Lily, but a pharmacy job was within her capabilities. “That doesn’t sound too bad,” she said. “What would I do?”
“Pharmacy dispensation and basic first aid.”
It was better than leeching off Fleet, stuck on a station and reading serial novels for the rest of her life. “Okay,” said Lily. “How do I sign up?”
“Commander Marska will direct someone to help you with that,” the admiral said. He stood up. Everyone around the table followed suit, and Lily quickly rose to her feet. “Dismissed.”
Rian led her out of the conference room. “What now?” she whispered.
“I’m sure we’ll be called back eventually,” he said. “I definitely will be.” The admirals and senior captains filed past. “They’ll want to know your plans shortly.”
“What plans? I told them I’ll be a pharmacy clerk and I’d rather stay—” She caught herself before she could say “with you.” “—on the Defiant,” she finished.
Was that a hint of a smile on his face? “That’s definitely safer,” he said.
“No kidding. Admiral Kentz looks like he’d be pissed off if I asked him how use a replicator.” They left the corridor and stood at a bank of elevators. “Now where?”
“Barracks have been assigned to the Defiant on deck D-4.”
“Wherever that is. I got called into the meeting before Taz and Mora could show me. Lead the way.”
It was a quick trip to the barracks, and Rian showed her to the simple room she had been assigned. His was down the corridor. A few crew members milled around, some in civvies, waiting for others to begin their brief liberty.
There was nothing in Lily’s room to keep her occupied, not even a TV—vidscreen, she corrected herself—and she had no idea where to find her new friends. Rian had disappeared into his room, telling her he had some reports to read and would find her later. She let herself bask in that knowledge for a few minutes. He seemed like a good person; she just wished he’d loosen up a little. He didn’t have to be a captain all the time. In all this, she had found a few bright spots, and he was one of them.
She didn’t have to ask his permission to prowl around the station. She was a Commons citizen now. What she was looking for was—what? Hunkering down in a booth at a pub with him, discovering what made the acting captain tick?
Yes, and more, she realized, and she wasn’t likely to get it.
How lost could she possibly get on a station, anyway? She fingered the credit card in her pocket, issued to her on the ship a few hours ago. It didn’t look like any credit card she had seen before, a little black square thing with a digital face like a clock’s and an inset pad that read her thumbprint. It was made of something metallic and lacked a name or signature strip. The credit card of the future. She didn’t know what a thousand credits
could buy and, she thought ruefully, had no idea of its value to dollars.
There was only one way to find out. She left her room and found herself face-to-face with Mora, who had changed out of her uniform into something sparkly and low-cut, and Taz, who wore his Fleet-issue pants and had changed his shirt for a black pullover. “Hey!” he said. “We were looking for you. The admirals let you go already?”
“Yeah.” Lily rolled her eyes.
“That’s what I thought,” Mora said. “Ready to hit Rubidge?”
Rian strode out of his room and saw them. Lily waved. “Forget something?” she asked.
“I just got called to the repair bay,” he said. “The engineers want to tell me what’s wrong with the aft shields.”
“They want your input on the shitbox?” Taz said. Mora winced before Rian could scowl.
“Watch your language, Ensign.”
“Sir, are we finally moving to better things, sir? Is the Defiant finally going to the scrap heap?”
“No, she’s being repaired, Ensign.” He nodded at Mora and Lily. “Nurse, Miss Stewart.” He headed off down the corridor.
“See you later, Captain,” Lily called.
Chapter 7
Yes, Lily could definitely get lost on Rubidge Station. Its commercial sector was a shopping mall on Christmas Eve crossed with Pearson Airport. She was glad she hadn’t ventured out on her own; it would have taken a Fleet search party to find her.
Taz and Mora traded barbs back and forth as Lily looked around in awe. The lack of overhead lighting made it feel like nighttime on a carnival midway. Light spilled from the shops’ doorways and tiny lights strung around poles and tables at restaurant patios—could they be called patios when they weren’t actually outside?—and flashing advertisements and neon signs. Music blared from every other storefront and pub, and they passed by a large aquarium built into the floor that housed what looked like a small shark, except it was glowing and purple. Barkers enticed the passersby to try their hand at what appeared to be ring toss, but the rings were bright electric loops that shimmered and disappeared when Lily saw a kid playing, and there were stands loaded with exotic food, perfume, scarves, vids...She was getting dizzy.
She didn’t know she had stopped and was looking in all directions until Mora took her arm. “Come on,” she said.
“Just a minute.”
Mora and Taz waited while Lily tried to digest everything around her. “Wow,” she squeaked. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“Drinking!” Taz said automatically.
“Gods,” Mora sighed, exasperated. “Later. We’re going shopping.”
Lily didn’t have the faintest idea where to start. “Okay,” she said. A vendor gestured to her and pointed to stacks of shimmering blankets. Lily smiled and mouthed No, thank you. The vendor discreetly flipped her off. Some things had stayed alive over the ages.
“I’ll be at the Flare when you’re done,” Taz told them.
Lily thought he would be waiting awhile. Shopping for clothes wasn’t her favorite thing to do under the best of circumstances; she tended to it in big bursts when she was down to three pairs of socks without holes. She never understood women who could comfortably max out a credit card in an afternoon.
“Lead the way,” she told Mora.
The nurse grinned. “How did you shop at home?”
“Oh, go somewhere, try on a bunch of stuff, force yourself not to cry when you see how you look in the dressing room mirror,” Lily said. “That is what we’re doing, right?”
Mora laughed and led her into a well-lit boutique. It was quieter in there, although no less crowded. “Not quite,” she said. “What do you mean by trying on clothes anyway?” She stopped at a row of headless mannequins and fingered the fabric on a short skirt Lily never would have dared to wear.
Lily half-listened to the question as she took in the store. There were no clothes racks or shelves of folded sweaters, just mannequins attired in the wares and holograms suspended from tablet computers that customers turned around. Every so often someone would change the image, and another blouse or dress would appear. “You pick out something in your size,” she explained. “Then go to a dressing room and try it on.”
Mora let go of the skirt long enough to gape at her. “Then what did you do with the clothes?”
“Well, if they didn’t make you look like a manatee, you bought them. And if they did, you gave them back to a clerk and they went back on the rack.”
Disbelief crossed Mora’s features. “So you could be wearing pants that a total stranger wore. No wonder you got so many vaccines.”
“Despite what you seem to think about our hygiene, we weren’t crawling with mutant strains of ass fungus.”
“That’s disgusting.”
Lily laughed. “No one ever died from trying on khakis at an Old Navy. Do you even know what whooping cough is?”
“It sounds like slang for a venereal disease.”
Lily laughed again. It felt so good. She was enjoying herself for the first time since waking up in the cargo hold, and chatting with a girlfriend for the first time since her own best friend poached her boyfriend two years ago. Although Katy had never made suggestions the way Mora was now, who was trying to convince her to spend her credits on something low-cut, short, and, as she described it, fun to wear on a night out.
“Mora, I just need some clothes for everyday for now,” Lily protested. “All I have is this uniform and the dress I woke up in.”
They flipped through the holograms on a table, and Mora grumbled about her unwillingness to experiment but pulled up the store’s offerings of more conservative clothing. Lily breathed a sigh of relief. Blouses and T-shirts were still available.
“So how does this work?” Lily asked.
“We’ll find a clerk with a datacorder and she’ll take your measurements,” Mora said. “Then you pick the stuff you want and it’s replicated according to them.”
“This is ingenious,” Lily breathed.
“Exactly. Everything fits the way it’s supposed to, which is why I really think you should consider that.” Mora pointed to a mannequin wearing a filmy black lace number that almost resembled a nightgown. “I think I might order it, but in blue.”
“Mora, I can’t wear that.”
“Why not?” She looked at Lily patiently for an explanation.
She fumbled for one. “It’s not really me. It wouldn’t fit right.”
“Yes, it would. Datacorder, Lily.” She pointed to a clerk with a handheld scanner, remotely measuring a customer.
“It’s just...not me. It’s too feminine. It’s what you wear when you want someone to hit on you.”
Mora stared at her. “Well, yeah, that’s kind of the point.”
“It would fit you better.” The nurse was tall and slim.
This earned an eye roll from Mora. “Why?”
“You’re tall. Athletic,” Lily finally said.
“‘Athletic’ is the kind term for not having boobs or an ass,” Mora said. “I don’t worry about it anymore. Much. You actually have a figure. You’ve been blessed.”
Mora’s compliments made Lily smile. Petite and curvy like the mother she knew only from photos, she had always felt a compulsion to lose ten pounds or at least grow a few inches, especially after Cameron left her. Katy had been tall and auburn-haired, with perfect skin. No matter how diligently Lily had applied sunscreen growing up, spending all that time outside on the tree farm had left freckles on her arms and across her nose. She swallowed those old insecurities and regarded the black dress again. Why not? It was guaranteed to fit. “Okay,” she said. Mora gave her a devilish grin. “But that’s it for any sexy stuff. I need practical clothes.”
Mora keyed in the order, and a sales clerk with tawny skin and blue hair that Lily suspected was natural immediately sped over with a datacorder at the ready. At the sight of it, Lily’s gut clenched and she remembered her appendectomy. Mora saw her apprehension, and leaned d
own to whisper, “Don’t worry. It isn’t medical.”
She relaxed and let the clerk scan her while cheerily filling her in on the boutique’s sales. She recognized Mora. “Are we indulging today?” she asked brightly.
“Definitely. Fleet’s posted me to their worst ship but at least they gave me a transfer bonus. I deserve a treat.” She pointed to the black lace dress. “Can I get that in red and blue?”
The blue-haired clerk tittered and keyed in the order. “Is it true you have a time traveler? That’s all anyone’s talking about.”
With shaking fingers, Lily spun around the suspended hologram and tapped the touchscreen to bring up the shop’s pants and skirts. “They’re keeping us in the dark, too,” Mora replied smoothly. “I read about it in today’s Rubidge Rumor, but they’re always talking out their asses.”
The clerk agreed, and left them to their shopping. Lily settled on a few shirts and pairs of pants that would have been acceptable back home. “I need shoes and underwear, too,” she told Mora.
“We’ll go somewhere else for underwear,” Mora promised and brought up another hologram. She picked out a sensible pair of boots that everyone wore on the Defiant, and flats that would suffice as something more formal after Lily talked her out of sky-high heels that would have left her with a broken ankle.
The clerk tallied up their orders and clicked on their credit cards with the datacorder. They left the shop empty-handed, and Mora explained that their purchases would be sent for pickup at the barracks. “How convenient,” Lily said. “I like shopping now.”
Mora laughed, and escorted her to her favorite lingerie place, where Lily ignored most of her suggestions and picked out underwear. “This is the best part,” Lily exclaimed over the holograms. “No more looking sickly and jaundiced in a fitting room, struggling with bra straps.”
Mora’s reaction was both comical and a relief to Lily. “Okay, so you actually tried on underwear? That’s of one of the most revolting things I’ve ever heard. Shopping in your time just sounds worse and worse.”
“Look at this from my perspective, at least. I’m just glad bras still exist.”
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