by J. R. Mabry
“The Ulim,” the man said.
Jeff’s mouth opened. He stared at the little man—at the shells and teeth dangling around his neck, at his ridiculous little hat. Time froze. “What did you say?”
“They go by another name, too. You will need to discover it. But…you should find them.”
“How do you know about the Ulim? And how did you know…”
“That you knew? We’re part of a very elite club, you and I.” The man didn’t look at him, but stared out at the stars.
“Wh-what do you mean? Have you…met…the Ulim?” Jeff asked.
“I have.”
“Where?” Jeff asked.
“That is a story that requires…some telling. Perhaps another time.” He smiled. “Perhaps not.”
“Tell me now,” Jeff insisted.
“I cannot. I have a connection to catch.” The man turned.
“Wait,” Jeff said. “How did you know…about me?”
“You can see it.”
“I can’t see it.”
“You can. You are just not looking for it.” He leaned in closer and fluttered his fingers. “It’s like little blue fireflies.” He smiled and patted Jeff’s arm. “Adios, mi amigo.”
Chapter Four
Jo stared as Shallit’s body tumbled away through the cold vacuum of space. She thought she’d feel satisfaction and triumph as his arms pinwheeled and his legs moved as if riding an invisible bicycle, then stopped. She balled her hand up into a fist to keep it from shaking. With effort, she tore her eyes away from the view port and faced the borderline mutineers that made up her security teams. “We have work to do, people,” she said and strode toward the lift.
She wasn’t usually conscious of herself as she walked, but as she pushed past her shocked men, she was aware of every muscle as she moved it, every articulated joint in its mobility. She almost stumbled from the alienness of trying to consciously coordinate the simple—or, as she discovered in the moment—extraordinarily complex act of walking.
She felt lightheaded, too, which didn’t help. She willed herself to be calm as the lift slowed. She was once more upright and regal as the doors to the bridge slid open and she stepped out.
She arrived to the great surprise—and horror, it seemed—of the bridge crew. The odd thing was that none of them were bridge officers. She vaguely recognized the man sitting at the communications station, and the woman in the weaponer’s chair. She knew the navigator, too, from engineering, but none of them were bridge crew. Everyone stopped and stared at her. None of them saluted. Their mouths gaped and she saw fear flame in their eyes. “Captain on the bridge!” Jo shouted, and watched as they scrambled to attention beside their stations.
“At ease,” Jo said, taking the captain’s chair. “Reports. You.” She pointed at the man at navigation. He looked down at his console and stammered, “Um, c-course set for Luyten, Gamma Station, sir.”
“Who gave that order, Mr.—”
“Vale, sir.”
“Mr. Vale, who gave that order?”
“Captain Shall—Mr. Shallit, sir.”
“Why are we headed for Gamma Station, Mr. Vale?”
“Mr. Shallit said something about ‘joining up’ with someone there.”
“With whom?”
“I don’t know, sir. He didn’t say.”
She turned toward communications. “Mr…Fein, is it?”
“Yes, sir.” The young man blinked, and Jo could see him sweating straight through his uniform. She pitied him.
“Did Mr. Shallit send any communications after the away team left?”
“Um, yes, sir. One secure data packet.”
“Send that to my neural now, please.”
The young man looked down and tapped in a few commands. “Should ping you right about…now, sir.”
Indeed, an orange light blinked in her peripheral vision. She looked up to retrieve the message. She read it carefully but quickly. So it was to be piracy after all. Good to know your true colors, Mr. Shallit.
She turned and faced the acting weaponer, a bulky young woman with short blonde hair. “Mr.—”
“Hagen.”
“Mr. Hagen, I wonder if you can tell me the location of my primary bridge crew? Or the secondary bridge crew, for that matter?”
The young woman’s eyes grew wide and she gulped.
“They are aboard this ship, are they not?”
“They are,” she said. “They’re in the…in the brig, sir.”
“And what offense landed them there, Mr. Hagen?”
“Insubordination, sir.”
“By which you mean they refused to be subordinate to Mr. Shallit when he took over the ship?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Which only leaves one question in my mind,” Jo tapped on the arm of her command chair. “Why are you here and not there?”
Hagan froze, as did every member of the crew.
“You may be wondering if you can band together to overwhelm me,” Jo said with an eerie calm in her voice, so calm that it unsettled even her. “Mr. Fein, I wonder if you can lock onto Mr. Shallit’s neural and get us a picture of where he is now?”
Fein turned to his console and tapped in a few instructions. “I have him…kind of.”
“Then let us see him. Main viewer, please.”
The larger view screen flickered and suddenly Greg Shallit’s body was clearly visible, tumbling slowly in space.
“What…happened to him?” Fein asked, his voice uncertain.
Jo let every one of her next words drop with as much ice as she could summon. “I. Happened. To. Him.”
She saw Fein’s hand start to shake. Good. He ought to be afraid of her. They all should.
“There’s a reason mutiny is treated like no other crime in the armed forces,” she said. “And it is also the only crime I have license to handle without due process.” She waited for that to sink in. “So I handled it.”
She stood and began to circumambulate the small bridge. “The problem before me now is discerning the fate of Shallit’s accomplices. Which actions among them constitute mutiny, and which are simply survival under mutinous conditions?”
No one moved. She saw Hagen’s fist balling. Open, shut, open, shut. She intentionally turned her back to her and measured her steps—slow, steady. She needed to create an inviting enough target. The blur in her peripheral vision told her that she had succeeded. Jo lunged to the left, simultaneously reaching toward the pouncing weaponer and snagging her uniform by the neck, hoisted down with every ounce of strength that was in her. Hagen’s head hit the side of the navigation panel with a sickening thuk. Her body dropped to the floor. Jo straightened her red uniform jacket and leveled her gaze at Fein and Vale. “Anyone else want a shot?”
Fein looked like he was about to cry.
“Mr. Vale, lay in a new course for Ross 154. Then send me a full report.”
He gulped. “Speed, sir?”
“C6.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Mr. Vale, where did you learn to fly?”
“Mars Academy, sir.”
“Are you a Martian, Mr. Vale?”
“I am, sir.”
“You’re awfully polite for a Martian.”
“Enhanced training, sir.”
“Obviously.” She afforded him a slight smile. Then she turned to Fein. “Mr. Fein, connect me to Security.”
“Security here,” a voice answered promptly.
“To whom am I speaking?” Jo asked.
“Security chief Dixon, sir.” The voice sounded Jamaican.
“That’s quite a patois you’ve got there, Dixon.”
“I work on that in my spare time, sir.”
“I hear you’ve got some of my crew members in lockup down there.”
“We do, sir, yes.”
“I’m going to need those folks on the bridge.”
“They’re pending charges, sir.”
“I’m invoking Captain’s Privilege subsequent to regulation 27, s
ubsection F, item 2. I want them back on the bridge in five minutes, sir.”
“They’re in the middle of dinner, captain.”
“Then get them to-go bags and promise them a picnic on the bridge. I also have one here for you to take back with you. Captain out.”
Somehow, Jeff found himself back at his cabin, although he had no memory of what transpired between the docking port and the moment he was standing outside his own door. He felt as if he were floating outside his own body, watching his movements from above. Everything was surreal and slightly out of focus. His arm lifted to hit the button that would open the door, but he didn’t know why he was there. Habit, I guess, he thought. But there was nothing in his cabin he wanted. He didn’t want to sleep, he didn’t want to change, he didn’t want a drink…
His head snapped up. That’s odd, he thought. Why don’t I want a drink? The craving for alcohol, for respite from his guilt and despair, however temporary, however problematic, however many unpleasant side-effects it brought in its wake, was omnipresent. But now it simply…wasn’t there. He blinked. He didn’t know what to make of it.
He broke the surface of his affect, as if dipping a toe into water of a suspicious temperature, lightly touching the place that housed his shame. It was there, but he felt strangely detached from it. He could see it. If he poked at it, he could feel it, but it was as if he were watching something horrible on display in a museum—it was preserved and observable, but not something he needed to live with.
His eyebrows bunched in confusion, and he decided maybe he needed to lie down after all. The dissociation was not dissipating and brought with it a nauseous and unpleasant vertigo.
He punched at the button, the scanner performed its handshake with his neural, and the door slid open. He cast off his boots and stumbled to the bed. Lying down, he stared at the ceiling, but the only thing filling his vision was the memory of the little man, the shaman.
He wanted to speak to him again—needed to speak to him again. But what was his name? Where was he going?
A feeling of urgency sped through Jeff. I’m not thinking straight, he thought. I shouldn’t be here, I should be tracking that man down. He blinked and accessed his neural. He did a search for interstellar launches, and discovered only one for two hours before or after—to Barnard Station—and it had already left. The little man was right—he’d had little time for the transfer.
Jeff sought access to the flight manifest. There would be hundreds, maybe thousands of passengers on that flight, but a part of him hoped for a name that sounded Peruvian. What the hell does a Peruvian name sound like? he asked himself. And how would it be different from a Panamanian or Mexican or Chilean or Argentinian name? He didn’t know. Goddam it, he sighed.
Just then there was a ping from the door. “Who is it?” he asked the door. “Neural scan indicates Dr. Emma Stewart,” the computer’s voice said. It was the same annoyingly calm voice he was used to from his own universe. He hated it.
“Let her in.”
A moment later, Emma was hovering over him. He didn’t look at her. He could feel her there. “Hi.”
“Jeff, you’ve got to come quickly. They’ve been arrested.”
“Who’s been arrested?” He opened his eyes and hoisted himself up on his elbows.
“Members of the crew. Pho and Nira. Not Wall, though.”
“Whaaaat?” Jeff sat up. “Why? Neither Pho or Nira is the type to get into a bar fight.”
“I don’t know. I just know…that you’d want to know.”
“Christ. Have you seen them?”
“No. I just heard about it from Wall. I came straight here.”
He was glad his head was clear. The dissociation seemed to be dissipating, too. “Guess I have a mission. You along?”
She cocked her head. “I have no other duties.” There was a note of sarcasm in her voice.
Jeff stood and straightened his jacket. “Let’s find out what’s going on.”
Leaving his cabin, Jeff accessed his neural and inquired as to the location of the brigs. They were just where he expected them to be—three of them, in precisely the same places they had been on their own Sol Station.
He sent an inquiry as to the location of his crew, but got nothing back. That decided it—he needed to go to the main security station and beat some heads together. He didn’t need a map to find that.
Emma seemed to have trouble keeping pace with him, and every few yards she had to scramble to match him. He noticed, but didn’t slow down. He could feel the adrenaline bolting into every system in his body—it was the feeling of clarity, of purpose, of indignation. He didn’t eschew any of it. Instead, he bathed in it, the polar opposite of the alcohol’s effects. It was euphoric and ecstatic in every way that whisky was not. It felt right and good.
It took them ten minutes to traverse the distance. He supposed they could have taken a tube, but that would have meant going the other way straight out of his cabin, and he hadn’t been thinking clearly enough for such a non-intuitive move. It didn’t matter. The exercise was doing him good, too, and it wouldn’t have saved them that much time.
He burst through the doors of security with Emma trailing. She seemed to have given up on keeping pace, but was still following. She caught up to him as he stood at the desk.
Jeff glared at the duty officer, who was talking to someone through his neural. His fingers drummed at the counter impatiently. The officer put his hand out, which Jeff took to mean, I see you, just a minute. Jeff studied the man. He seemed to be of African descent, and part of his head was clearly prosthetic. Jeff surmised that he’d been wounded in battle and in exchange for his courage and health had been awarded this lovely desk job. Jeff drummed his fingers some more.
Emma covered Jeff’s hand with her own, stilling it. He took a deep breath.
A few moments later the duty officer looked down from his neural and gave them a perfunctory smile. “What do you need?” he asked.
“I need to know where my crew is being held, and I need to see them,” Jeff said.
“Names?” The man sighed and looked up to retrieve the records from his neural.
“Lieutenant Martin Pho and Commander Camil Nira, from the crew of the Kepler. The…uh…the other Kepler.”
“Oh yeah, I heard about that,” the duty officer said. “Weird thing. Can’t wait to get the whole story.”
Strangely, the young man did not ply Jeff for any details to the story. That was just fine with him.
“Uh…huh. Okay. I can see where they are…but it’s classified.”
“What do you mean, it’s classified?”
“What do you mean, what do I mean? It’s just classified.”
Emma put a hand on his arm. “Don’t take it out on him, Jeff. We just need to go around.”
The duty officer looked down and smiled at Emma. “That’s exactly right.”
“I’ll send a message to Danny,” Jeff said to Emma. He turned back to the officer. “Perhaps you can explain to Captain Hightower where they are.”
The duty officer recoiled a bit. “The Butcher?”
Jeff blinked. “What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing,” the young man said, obviously rattled. “Uh…Captain Hightower does not have sufficient clearance.”
“Well go to Tal, then,” Jeff said.
“Admiral Tal?” The young man asked. His voice actually cracked.
“Yes, of course, Admiral Tal,” Jeff snapped. He looked up and shot off a message to the Admiral. When he looked back down, he narrowed his eyes at the young officer. “Does Admiral Tal have enough fucking clearance to access this information?”
“Uh…yes sir, of course sir.”
“Good. We’ll wait.”
“How about some coffee, Jeff?” Emma asked. She pointed to a compact food synthesizer on the wall and cocked her head at the service officer.
“Oh, sure. You’ll find cups right over there. Help yourself. They’ve got a new cocoa in that’s wond
erful.”
“Fucking cocoa,” Jeff said, as Emma handed him a cup. “Jo drank cocoa.”
“Don’t go there,” Emma said.
“You jealous?”
“I am not jealous of Jo. Jo is…” Jeff knew she was about to say “dead,” and she must have realized how it would sound out loud. “I have never been jealous of Jo.”
“Bullshit,” Jeff said.
“I liked Jo.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“I did.”
Jeff gave her a dubious look.
“Okay, if we had met under different circumstances, we would never have hung out together or anything. But I didn’t dislike her.”
“The double-negative speaks volumes.”
“And I understand why you did. Like her.”
Jeff nodded. It was big of her to concede it. He felt grateful somehow. “Thanks.”
Jeff considered telling her about the shaman, but thought better of it. He needed to know more before he said anything.
“Uh…excuse me,” the man at the desk waved to them. Jeff leaped up and Emma came to his side a moment later. “Okay, you’ve got clearance to see them, courtesy of the Admiral.” The man looked shocked. “You must have some fucking clout.”
“I’m a ghost,” Jeff answered, “and that seems to be worth something, at least until the novelty wears off.”
“Here are your passes.” The man handed a lanyard to each of them. “Now if you’ll just hold still so I can get a retina scan, I’ll pull up your neural codes and enter your permissions.”
Jeff and Emma stood still until the green light flashed and the man nodded, apparently satisfied. He manipulated something on his pad and then gave them a perfunctory smile. “That will do it. Now…no explosives, drugs, weapons, or contraband of any kind. No liquids, fruits, vegetables, or spices while you’re inside—”
“I know the drill, sergeant.”
“I don’t!” Emma slapped him on the arm. “I’m curious. What else can’t we bring in?”
“No granulated sweeteners or perfumes or cosmetics. No prosthetics or religious materials.”
“Why are those in the same category?” Emma asked Jeff. He shrugged.
“No electronics or bio-drives or disease agents or biological fluids or organs.”