Interim: On the run from the Galactic FTL Police

by P. K. Lentz

  He requested entry to her quarters. Before long the door slid open and a tired-eyed Mela appeared dressed in less-than-modest bedclothes. She beckoned him inside.

  “Will,” she said, smiling awkwardly as he entered the room. “I’m so sorry about earlier. Sorry I was such a killjoy. I’m over it now. It won’t happen again.”

  “No, no, you’re not a killjoy, Mela,” Gareth assured her. “Not at all. I enjoy spending time with you.”

  That caused the redhead’s faint smile to expand. She was not making this easy. Best just to tell her quickly, Gareth resolved. The longer he dragged it out the crueler it would seem.

  “Listen...” he started, drawing Mela away from him with a hand on her shoulder, the better to look her in the eye. “It’s hard for me to tell you this, but I’m afraid something has come up and I’m going to be very busy.”

  Mela’s tired eyes narrowed. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m sorry, Mela.”

  “But I-I won’t cry anymore, I promise!” she said desperately. As if solely to put the lie to that vow, her wide eyes began to tear. “I’ll be good.”

  “No, Mela, it’s not like that at all. It isn’t anything you’ve done. This is my ship and I have responsibilities I can’t run away from.”

  Mela hid her face in her hands as tears began to fall freely. Gareth touched a hand to her cheek.

  “We’ll have dinner later,” he offered. “With a view of Merada like you’ve never seen. Okay?”

  She sniffled a few times, avoiding his eyes. “And then I have to hibernate?” she asked meekly. “And wake up on...on my new home?”

  “I’ll revive you for the last part of the voyage, before anyone else. Promise.”

  Mela wiped her face and looked up defiantly. “What is it that’s come up?”

  Gareth had prepared for this. He’d decided not to tell her of the recent events on and around Merada, which could only upset her. He might have blamed unspecified ‘technical troubles,’ but that excuse was hardly comforting to an already nervous groundsider.

  “One of the cargo bays is imbalanced,” he lied. “We have to reload the entire thing. Then there are some accounts left to settle on Merada. It’s all very dull.” Gareth lifted Mela’s pretty chin with two fingers. “Believe me, I would much rather spend the time with you.”

  That last part, at any rate, was no lie.

  The hurt softened in Mela’s eyes as she nodded and sank into Gareth’s chest. He held her silently there for several moments before disengaging.

  “I have to go,” he said, “but I’ll be back later to take you to dinner. Will you be alright?”

  Mela nodded silently with downcast eyes. The door slid shut to separate them. From her quarters Gareth walked one hundred and eighty degrees around the hab module to the medlounge and requested entry.

  The door opened promptly to reveal Zerouali, ready and waiting for the coming conference to decide her fate. She gave only a courteous nod as she stepped into the corridor. It came as somewhat of a relief to Gareth not to have to converse with the woman. It wasn’t so much that he disliked her--he hardly knew her enough for that. Rather her presence was simply too powerful. Based on what little Gareth had seen, Zerouali managed to dominate any space she occupied, controlling the flow of conversation with scarcely a word.

  But for all the impression of cool distance she projected, Gareth sensed, there lay a great deal of complexity behind those dark eyes. There had to be. He had joked earlier to Zerouali that she should have been captured already, but the mere fact that she hadn’t been spoke volumes. Something had kept her alive and free, and it wasn’t luck. She was not to be underestimated.

  The two arrived in the conference room and took adjacent seats at the oblong table. There they passed a few minutes in awkward silence awaiting the arrival of Lady’s senior crew.

  Aprile entered first. After eying Zerouali, the navigator cast a questioning glance at Gareth, who just nodded and gestured for her to take a seat. Ilias, the engineer, and Thorien, Lady’s doctor, followed shortly behind and took their seats with friendly smiles at the newcomer.

  With all present, there was nothing to do but start. The room’s occupants, with the exception of Zerouali, who stared blankly ahead, looked expectantly at Gareth. He’d been spacing with the two men present for the bulk of his life, and with Aprile for a number of years, yet this was the first time he could recall feeling even remotely uncomfortable addressing any of them. He heaved a reluctant sigh and began.

  “I think you’re all aware that we have a guest,” he said with a nod to Zerouali. For the fugitive’s sole benefit Gareth spoke in Meradi rather than the spacer Galactic he would normally employ among his crew. “She was smuggled aboard today with our hibe capsules. What I haven’t told you yet is that I do know something about why she’s here. So I’ll just come right out with it. Everyone, meet Dr. Jilan Zerouali. Meradi rebels on the surface snuck her aboard in the hope we’d smuggle her out-system. Apparently the Interim wants her very badly.”

  As he spoke Gareth’s eyes hovered on Aprile, whose response he’d expected to be the most immediate and vocal. She surprised him by staying silent, even if her tight lips suggested she was holding back.

  “While normally I go to great lengths to avoid trouble,” Gareth went on, “it looks like trouble has found us. We have a few options, and those are what we’re here to discuss. Dr. Zerouali herself has suggested... Well, I suppose I should let her speak for herself.”

  Gareth felt a measure of relief in turning the proceedings over to Zerouali, though he hadn’t a clue what she might say.

  The fugitive remained cool and unflinching as the crew’s eyes turned as one toward her. “Though I have no particular desire to be captured,” she began without ceremony, “I believe that the risk to your vessel and its passengers is too severe to justify any efforts on my behalf. Therefore, I apologize for my presence and suggest that your wisest course would be to surrender me to Fleet authorities immediately.”

  A curt nod indicated she had finished. The speech disappointed Gareth, even if it failed to surprise him. Her stubborn but well-reasoned refusal to argue her own case might make aiding her a tough sell.

  Aprile chose this moment to break her silence with a perfectly reasonable question aimed at the fugitive. “What did you do?” she asked. “Or assuming you’re innocent, what do they think you did?”

  Zerouali answered with her usual composure. “I’m afraid that to divulge that would only heighten the risk to myself and all around me. As I explained to your captain, I prefer to say only that I took issue with the Interim’s plans for me.”

  Aprile snorted. “Well, that tells us nothing. For all we know, you could be a mass murderer.”

  Since Zerouali offered no hint of reaction either positive or negative to the accusation, Gareth pressed her.

  “Well, have you killed anyone?” he asked. “Can you at least tell us that much?” He was eager to give Zerouali a chance to improve her image, even accidentally. Assuming she said anything at all, of course. Speaking to her was like a game, Gareth realized. Find the right question and you just might get a decent answer.

  There was a tense pause before Zerouali’s reply. Presumably she spent that time deciding whether or not to answer at all, since it seemed a rather straightforward question otherwise.

  “No,” she said at length. “I’ve never killed anyone. But I’ll say no more on the matter.”

  However unsatisfying, the answer struck Gareth as an honest one. In the brief silence that followed, a simple possibility occurred to him. One that he, of all people, should have seen from the start.

  “You know something, don’t you?” he guessed. “Something dangerous to them.”

  Gareth watched Zerouali’s features carefully for a reaction. He might just as well have tried to read a bulkhead.

  “As I said,” she replied, “I have nothing more to say on the matter.”

  The room lapsed again into s
ilence. Gareth broke it with a sigh, but only after sharing a brief, meaningful glance with the two male members of his senior crew.

  “I see three options,” Gareth began next. “A: we attempt to smuggle the Doctor through quarantine. B: we find a way to get her safely back to Merada. Or C: we hand her over and be done with it. We’ll put it to a vote. First, so she can’t accuse me of forcing anything on her, does anyone object to allowing the doctor to participate?”

  Silent approval all around.

  “Okay, then. Aprile?” Gareth had little doubt how she would vote, or at least how she wouldn’t.

  “C,” she said, predictably and with an unapologetic glance at Zerouali. “She said it herself. There’s too much at stake.”

  “Thorien?”

  “A,” the graying doctor said quietly.

  “Ilias?”

  A thoughtful pause preceded the engineer’s, “A.”

  Aprile’s eyes flashed. No doubt the only reason she didn’t leap onto the table in protest was that she hadn’t yet accepted defeat. She looked expectantly at Zerouali, next in line to vote and presumably a guaranteed “C” given her earlier speech.

  “I abstain,” she said instead.

  “What the--” Aprile cut herself short before the inevitable curse.

  “And my vote is A,” Gareth announced. “With three votes for, one against and one abstention, the A’s have it. We take her out-system.”

  “Have you all gone raving mad?” Aprile blurted, reverting to the spacer tongue. “She didn’t even ask for our help! And do you understand the consequences if we’re caught? Never mind our passengers--we will all spend the rest of our lives on some prison rock at the ass end of the galaxy! If we’re lucky!”

  “I think we’re aware of the risks,” Gareth cut in, sticking with Meradi as a courtesy to their guest. “Anyone want to change their vote?”

  Ilias and Thorien shook their heads subtly, holding fast in the face of Aprile’s angry, incredulous glares.

  “So what’s the deal?” Aprile asked Gareth caustically, again in Galactic. “Have you slept with her already or are you just hoping to? She’d better be good, because she might just be your last. Last female, at any rate. Prison will be another story.”

  “That’s enough,” Gareth said dispiritedly, finally switching to the spacer tongue himself.

  “No, really,” Aprile persisted. “Don’t you have some piece of tail wandering the ship already? Is she not good enough?”

  “This has absolutely nothing to do with my sex life,” Gareth grumbled.

  Aprile sank back into her chair with arms folded, scowling. She came across as bitter and sulking--hardly her typical disposition, but this was hardly a typical encounter.

  Once she’d quieted Gareth addressed Aprile calmly, directly, in the spacer tongue. It wouldn’t do to have bad blood aboard Lady, especially not now. “You know the three of us better than that, Aprile,” he said. “You make jokes at my expense and I would never change that. I usually deserve them. But you wouldn’t have stayed on as long as you have if you really thought I would make life-or-death decisions frivolously.”

  “I haven’t seen life-or-death on Lady yet,” Aprile countered. “And besides, it’s not exactly easy to find another berth even if I wanted to jump ship. Which I don’t, of course.” This last was a hasty afterthought.

  “And I’d hate to lose you,” Gareth said gently. “Believe me, Aprile, I would be much happier if I had never seen this woman. But here she is.”

  The comments about Zerouali, even though spoken in a language she was unlikely to comprehend, seemed a touch inconsiderate given her presence in the room. But Gareth hardly worried about insulting her. To feel insulted one required emotions, something their guest had yet to prove she possessed. At any rate, she didn’t react.

  “You know nothing about her!” Aprile accused. “She won’t even explain herself. You’re right, I do know you pretty well--and you should know me well enough to realize I’m no coward. I’ll put my ass on the line for the right cause. But can you even tell me what the cause is here? What is her cause?”

  Of course, Gareth had no answer to this. Yet Aprile was perfectly within her rights to demand answers, as were they all. That Aprile was the only one to exercise that right stemmed undoubtedly from the history, completely unknown to her, that she alone didn’t share with the other three crewmembers present.

  Aprile hadn’t been with them on Lucifer’s Halo. She hadn’t been present, as they had, for the very birth of the Interim--hadn’t played a role, however accidental, in its creation. No, Aprile was too young to even remember a time in which Fleet’s fibresteel claws weren’t wrapped around every star.

  “You’re right,” Gareth said in eventual reply. “We know very little about her. But what I do know makes me inclined to believe her.” With no way to know whether or not she was capable of following the conversation, Gareth continued to speak of Zerouali as if she weren’t beside him. “She offered to give herself up rather than put us at risk. That doesn’t sound like a murderer to me.”

  “Actually,” Aprile said, “it sounds like a very clever and successful murderer.”

  “The man who sent her to us was a Meradi anti-Interim leader called Astynax,” Gareth said. “I couldn’t dig up much about him or his faction, but naturally I identify with his cause.”

  “Astynax.” Aprile repeated the name as if searching her memory. “Never heard of him. What reason do you have to take him at his word? Maybe he’s the one conning us. I’d like to see that disc.”

  Gareth winced. “I know this sounds bad, but it was coded to wipe on first access. I’d have done the same in his place.”

  “No doubt. Look, I personally have nothing against rebels or fugitives or shady people in general, and you know I have no love for Fleet. What we don’t know is just how shady these people are, your new girlfriend here included. We don’t know what she’s done or what her motives are. We know nothing at all. She might not seem like a criminal, but the best ones never do. When someone’s in as much trouble as she apparently is, it’s fair to assume the worst.”

  Gareth shrugged. “I happen to disagree with that last part, but otherwise you make a sensible case. Do you want another vote?”

  Aprile gave a dismissive wave. “Don’t bother. I know how it’ll go. I’ll settle for permission to say ‘I told you so’ when this is over. If we live long enough.”

  With a curt, “Permission granted,” Gareth was happy to bring an end to his aside with Aprile and switch back into Meradi to address the whole room. “The next thing we need is a plan,” he said. “How do we conceal her from an Interim inspection? We’ll meet at 0800 to discuss. Meantime, there should be absolutely no mention of Zerouali’s name or presence over comms. Strictly face-to-face. She’ll be staying in the medlounge for the time being.”

  With that the gathering adjourned.

  “Welcome aboard,” Aprile muttered to Zerouali as she rose. The phrase, spoken in Meradi, was a deliberate and bitter imitation of the cheerful recorded greeting heard incessantly on Merada’s groundside public transit system. Aprile then wondered aloud in Galactic as she left the room, “When did Lady get a parliament, anyway?”

  Ilias and Thorien passed by next, with much more cordial goodbyes. Zerouali acknowledged the two with a tiny nod, the minimum of courtesy. Left alone with her in the now empty room, Gareth motioned for Zerouali to precede him out the door.

  “So, can I trust you?” he asked as they started the walk back to the medlounge.

  “That’s not a proper question.”

  Gareth stifled a sigh. “How so?”

  “It’s not complete. Can you trust me for what? You can trust me to do some things and not others.”

  “Well, that’s one way to look at it,” Gareth scoffed. “An aggravating way. Fine--can I trust you not to do anything stupid like trying to contact Fleet and turn yourself in?”

  “There seems to be enough stupidity aboard your vessel
without my adding to it.”

  This made Gareth’s blood boil, but he didn’t give in to his anger. “Just give me a straight answer, will you?” he said.

  Zerouali answered in no hurry, “Your word is law on your ship. Hence my abstention. I’ll abide by your decision.”

  Once more Gareth found himself inclined to believe the fugitive despite the lack of any convincing reason to do so. The content of her speech was usually sensible enough; it was only the manner of delivery that left much to be desired.

  “At least if we all burn,” Gareth said, “it’ll be no one’s fault but my own.”

  “If you like,” Zerouali returned.

  “You use that phrase too much. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  Gareth wasn’t sure why he bothered to complain. Maybe he yet believed he could get under her skin the way she did his. But apparently he failed, for the short trip concluded in silence. At the medlounge door Gareth recalled something he’d meant to ask her.

  “Do you understand Galactic?”

  Zerouali’s answer emerged fluently in that very tongue. “That’s something any spacer’s ‘girlfriend’ should know, is it not?”

  Coming from some other woman the words might have been flirtatious; from Zerouali they were just belittling.

  She stepped across the threshold into the medlounge and waited there a moment, detached, a scientist observing her specimen. Gareth felt once more the familiar urge to escape her presence.

  “Someone’ll comm you about dinner,” he said tersely. “You’ll find food and drink here in the lounge, if you haven’t already. Beyond that you’re on your own, although I’d appreciate it if you didn’t leave this room without escort.”

  Zerouali nodded, indicating at once understanding and farewell. Then she keyed the door shut.

  Muttering a few choice monosyllables under his breath, directed more at fate than at Zerouali, Gareth turned to leave.

  ***

  The shipwide comm aboard Hunter in the Dark sent Simon Ascher into a panic. All personnel were to undergo an upgrade to their neurilace security protocols prior to departure from Reissa. The broadcast would come just a few minutes from now.