Call of Courage: 7 Novels of the Galactic Frontier

by C. Gockel

  “You were in equestrian circles?” Noa asked.

  “I just remembered, I used to play polo.”

  Noa stopped in a slanting beam of sunlight coming through a grate above their heads. She had to throw a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing aloud at the completely random statement. Biting said hand to stifle the chortle, she looked up at James. He raised an eyebrow and whispered, “I am glad you find that amusing.”

  “Rich much?” she asked, resuming her path down the tunnel. Horses—polo—enormous off-world country “cottage”?

  James looked heavenward.

  “Should I have told Ghost we could have given him double his money on arrival at Sol Station?” Noa chided in a hushed voice.

  James stopped short. His jaw twitched—as it did when she expected a smile or a frown. “No … I … since the accident, I am not sure … ”

  Noa’s smile dropped. “The augments … your family … ” Enhanced sight, his appearance, his strength—James’s augments were state of the art. “They spent it all on you.”

  James looked at the ground. “I think maybe … ”

  Noa put her hand on his arm. “Hey, at least you’re here.”

  James looked up at her. Raising both brows, he looked pointedly down at the puddled water beneath their feet and then up at her. “Joy,” he said.

  And Noa had to bite back her laughter again. As they continued down the tunnel, her eyes slid to James. She could just barely see him in the dim tunnel. He carried the backpack swung over one shoulder. She trusted him implicitly with the burden. He could have left her behind long ago—but he hadn’t. And he wasn’t Fleet, or Luddeccean, but of all the off-worlder civilians to be stuck with, well, she could have done much worse. And he had that dry wit of his. She smiled to herself.

  “What?” James whispered.

  They had too many serious moments ahead of them. She wasn’t about to let the ball of levity drop in this moment of calm. Alluding to a silly tee-vee show from the United States in the 1970s, Noa whispered, “The six-million credit man.”

  James didn’t smile, of course. But she knew he found it funny, when, in a perfect imitation of the strange sound effects of the show, he said, “Sprrrrrooooooyoooyoooinnnngggg.”

  “Ghost’s not answering,” Noa whispered. She was hanging on a rusty ladder about a meter from James’s head, rapping on an equally rusty metal hatch. The ladder continued up to a manhole. Sunlight was streaming over Noa, turning her skin to dark orange. Occasionally someone would walk overhead and Noa would press herself to the wall.

  “Maybe I can break the lock?” James said, remembering the train.

  “Yeah, I think you’ll have to,” Noa said, giving a tug to the door handle. Dust fell into James’s eyes and mouth. He coughed and blinked upward.

  Noa was staring at a piece of metal in her hands. The narrow hatch was slightly ajar in front of her. “Okay, that was really rusty,” she whispered.

  Because it had made her smile before, James made the same sound effect from the 1970s television show. Biting her lip, she gave him a dirty look. “Don’t make me laugh—” A shadow passed above her and she pressed her slender frame against the wall. The shadow didn’t slow. Noa pulled away from the wall with a sigh that James could barely hear, but could see. And then he saw her mouth drop open and heard her gasp.

  “What is it?” James said, his body already dropping into a crouch, preparing to jump up to the ladder.

  Dropping her head to face him, Noa put a finger to her lips, and then without explanation, she slid forward through the hatch; it slipped closed behind her with a soft clang.

  Above the manhole someone stopped and James jumped back. “A rat down there?” someone said.

  “Damn things hitchhike on spaceships all the time,” said someone else.

  “Not anymore,” said another voice. “And good riddance.” There was a sound of retreating footsteps. Jumping, James caught the lowest rung of the ladder with ease, and pulled himself up from a dead hang. He reached the hatch, and saw that not just the lock had come off, but a portion of the ancient brick surrounding the door. He didn’t reflect on it, just opened the ancient door marked with the seal of a defunct electrical utility. Where there should have been the darkness of Ghost’s hideout there was blinding light—and no Noa. Pressing himself to his stomach, he slithered through the narrow space, using his elbows to propel himself forward. He heard the door clang behind him as his head popped out of the narrow access shaft. He gasped. Instead of the unkempt room he remembered, there was brightness, and where the geothermal heater had been was a chrome column four meters wide, burnished so brightly he could see his own reflection and Noa’s as she stood to the side of the entrance shaft, craning her neck upward.

  “What’s going on?” he said, pulling himself out of the shaft.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. The light was so bright, so natural, that for a moment James was transported to a memory of a church of the New Era with white walls and sunlight streaming through the roof. He lifted his eyes, and saw the ceiling that had been barely above his head before was now vaulted several stories high. Neat metal ducts protruded from the column at regular angles above their heads. He looked down. Below them was wire flooring, and below that he could see machinery that was eerily silent. Turning slowly in place, he saw a podium with gauges set into it, and a keyboard, much like the one on his laptops. He heard Noa’s footsteps. Spinning, he found her lifting a hand toward the chrome cylinder. Her hand passed right through. “It’s a hologram of the Ark’s engine room,” she said, her voice hushed. She inclined her head to the chrome column. “That must be a holo of a fission reactor … but I can’t figure out what it’s projected on.”

  “Another one of Ghost’s creations,” James said, reaching out to touch the keyboard. The illusion was so real he saw the shadow of his hand on the keys. When his fingers passed through the holographic keyboard, he almost sighed in dismay.

  From around the giant column came Ghost’s mutter, “Oh, no, that doesn’t sound good at all.”

  Noa’s eyes met James’s, her lips parted but she didn’t even whisper.

  Ghost’s voice echoed again. “But then how to fix it? Hmmm … ”

  Holding out her hands, Noa slowly walked around the chrome column. James quickly fell into step behind her.

  They found Ghost with his back to them, staring down at another console, muttering, “That sounds better, but still not good—”

  “That’s because nothing good ever came out of a holodeck,” Noa said, referring to a television show they had watched. She gave a wink to James. He wanted to frown at her. The “holodeck” they were in was ingenious, breathtaking, and deserved some respect.

  Ghost spun around, eyes wide, nostrils flared. “I’m impressed your education was sophisticated enough to make that reference, Sato.”

  Noa shrugged and smiled. “Already preparing to go with us?” Her eyes narrowed. “Maybe you don’t have as many options as you said you did?”

  The hologram dissipated, and for a moment James could see nothing. His eyes adjusted, and he found himself in the familiar darkness of Ghost’s basement. Where the shiny chrome nuclear core had been, there was now the geothermal generator. All of the furniture in the room had been pushed to the side.

  Ghost’s eyes narrowed. “The Ark is the only one of all my potential escape craft that I don’t know like the back of my hand. I was merely educating myself on the peculiarities of its engineering before you returned with my credits.”

  Lowering her chin, Noa glared at Ghost for all of thirty seconds. He sniffled and wiped the side of his nose.

  Jaw tight, she indicated the floor with a tilt of her chin. “James, let’s give him the credits.”

  James dropped the backpack with the credits on the floor.

  “The deposit’s all there,” Noa said.

  Ghost looked down at the floor, and then up at Noa. He didn’t ask questions about how they acquired the money, or
even pick up the backpack, but James thought he saw a light by the side of his head flash in the direction of the credit-laden bag.

  “You’ll give us access to the population data?” Noa asked.

  Lifting his gaze, Ghost said, “Yes.” He tapped his head. “It’s all in here … ”

  Noa leaned back, and her lip curled slightly. “I’m not interested in some dirty hard link.”

  Ghost sniffed. “I wasn’t going to suggest it. I was only thinking of the best way to get the most up-to-date data from the Luddeccean main computer to—”

  James’s neurons fired like fireworks on Unification Day. “Up-to-date data from the main computer—but that would require the ethernet if you’re not hard linking into it.”

  Noa’s eyes went wide. “Ghost, if you’re using some other sort of remote signal, their amplifiers could catch it.”

  “It’s not like that.” He smirked, and his eyes shone. “There is no signal to pick up.”

  Noa’s jaw dropped. “You have some sort of landline—”

  Ghost beamed. “No.”

  James’s mind spun, thinking of the holograms that had to be the result of applications of quantum theory, and came up with another conceivable application. “Does it rely on quantum entanglement?” Theoretically, entangled particles could be in the same state in two different places at once, and such states could be measured and used to communicate between one place and anywhere else in the universe.

  Noa huffed. “It’s not quantum magic.”

  Ghost’s smile dropped. His lip quivered. “No,” he said, leveling his gaze at James.

  “Then how—” James began.

  “I use it all the time and they still haven’t found me.” Ghost said, beginning to pace. “But how to get the data to you and allow you to sort through it?” His eyes widened. “Oh, the Ark’s antiquated interfaces have given me an idea!”

  James was blinded by a bright flash of light, but then the light dimmed, and he found Noa and himself facing a semi-transparent wall. Between them were two consoles like the one James and Noa had just seen, complete with keyboards. In front of each, the wall blinked with illuminated text: Please input search parameters.

  “You couldn’t have made it voice-activated?” Noa said, looking down at the keypad.

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to study the engineering systems of the Ark without interruption,” Ghost snapped back.

  Noa glared at him but went to the keypad. She pressed down on a key and said, “My finger is hitting empty air.”

  Waving his hand, Ghost said, “It still registers your input.”

  Noa slowly plunked out a query and the semi-transparent wall of light began scrolling with names. Noa’s eyes went wide. “This works. James, why don’t you commit all the sewer, electrical, and service tunnels here in Prime to memory, and streets and alleys, too?”

  “Will do,” James said. His own mental map was not that complete. He bent to his console, but his eyes went through the wall, now filled with names. Ghost was staring at engineering schematics, similarly projected in the air before him.

  Catching his gaze, Ghost said, “I don’t just want to upload the schematics to my memory app—I want to commit them to my neurons—and really understand them.” He sighed. “I have a feeling it will be a bumpy ride.”

  James suspected Ghost was right. He nodded at the inventor. Noa might not like or trust him, but James was beginning to respect his intellect. The man flushed slightly, and then his eyes went back to the schematics.

  Bending over his console, James typed the request for sewer lines into the air pad, and began committing the results to memory. Beside him, he heard Noa gasp.

  Ghost spun around, and James turned to her sharply.

  Noa put a hand to her mouth. Eyes wide, she said, “Kenji.”

  James looked at the light screen. The young man from the holograph was there. He looked considerably older now—older even than Noa. He hadn’t taken age suppressors, obviously.

  From the other side of the light screen, Ghost sneered. “They gave him my job.”

  James’s eyes slid to the other data besides Kenji’s picture. There was his title, “Lead Analyst, Computing Systems,” and a home address.

  “They didn’t arrest him?” Noa said.

  “Arrest him?” Ghost said. “He works for them.” Inclining his head toward Noa, he said, “He probably turned you in.”

  Noa’s hands fell to her side. “He’s my brother!”

  Ghost shrugged.

  “He didn’t turn me in!” Noa said, her voice rising.

  Ghost’s chin dipped.

  “Where’s the evidence? Show me the evidence!” Noa demanded, stepping through the wall of light.

  Ghost shuffled backward and held up his hands. “I don’t … ”

  “You don’t have any!” Noa retorted. “You were always jealous of him! You’re not half the genius he is, and you’ve always been jealous!”

  Eyes wide, Ghost took a step back. “I just … ”

  Noa took a step forward. “You just—”

  James caught her shoulder just as her body was bisected by light. “Noa,” he whispered, “We still need Ghost’s help.”

  He felt her body rise and fall as she took a deep breath. She closed her eyes and stepped back, not meeting Ghost’s eyes.

  Ghost harrumphed. “Your brother is a lunatic.”

  James glared at him. Lip trembling, Ghost turned away. James looked back to Noa. She wouldn’t meet his eyes.

  Chapter Twelve

  Noa walked along the promenade of Time Gate 1, hovering in Earth’s orbit. The promenade went the circumference of the gate, and was as wide as an eight-hover roadway. A skylight over her head let her see the entirety of the gate. Time Gate 1 was shaped like a ring; her feet were in the direction of its outer rim, her head its inner. The outer rim had twelve “jewels” set into it. From where she stood they looked tiny, but each was as large as a mid-rise building. Each had engines and defensive arrays—although the defensive arrays had never been used in Sol System’s gate. These “jewels” were studded with docked ships. She heard a hum and instinctively looked up. The skylights in the inner rim were bisected by giant timefield bands. The bands were glowing now. They looked like liquid lightning, and then the lightning turned to rainbow colors and spread out in an enormous sphere within Time Gate 1’s center. It was a breathtaking sight, one that Noa hardly believed could be created by humans. The rainbow sphere disintegrated and the hum died. Where a moment before she had seen the opposite side of the time gate, now there were two large freighters and a number of smaller passenger vehicles. The memory of the bubble bursting stayed etched in her mind. She sent it to Timothy without even blinking her eyes. “Always beautiful,” Tim replied from where he was stationed aboard the Sun-Sin, the fighter-carrier that was their home, currently docked for maintenance at moon base.

  “I forgot what gate Kenji’s at,” Noa said over the ether, dropping her gaze and searching the ethernet for departure information. “How did I not put that in my memo-app?”

  “A-03,” Tim reminded her over the frequency. And then his thoughts gently nudged her. “Shouldn’t the Senior Lieutenant of a fighter squadron remember the destination of her mission without having to rely on a memo app?” Noa rolled her eyes and let him feel it. She’d just been promoted to the leader of her squadron aboard the fighter carrier Sun-Sin. Tim was an engineer for the enormous carrier, a position out of her line of command, allowing their relationship to be completely above board. Although she had aspirations for a Captaincy; that rank would complicate things, and for now their situation was perfect. “Don’t you have a toilet line leaking near the engine to repair, Lieutenant?” she teased right back.

  “Ha, ha … but yes, I have to report to duty in three minutes and fifty-six seconds. I better sign-off. Enjoy your leave with your brother, and don’t get into any trouble—I know that’s hard for you.”

  “You stay out of trouble,” Noa res
ponded, mostly to keep him on the line.

  “Yeah, I’ll be sure to put up the out-of-order signs.” Because she knew Tim, she could “hear” the dry humor in his “voice” and feel his annoyance with the task in her bones. “Love you,” he said, and then their connection shut down. Noa stopped on the promenade. For the first time, she saw the crowds swirling around her … and for the first time, she felt alone even though she could see Kenji now, sitting at his gate, eyes glued to an e-reader. He wore funny little old-fashioned glasses. Lately, he didn’t want anyone “messing with his eyes.” In her mind she felt the tickle of messages piling up, and a restaurant she passed on the concourse sent a little ping to her personal line, trying to get her attention and remind her that they had the best won-ton mein off-planet. Ignoring all of it, she strode over to Kenji. Although she made no effort to hide her approach, he didn’t look up until she leaned over and said, “Hey, Little Brother!” He visibly jumped in his seat.

  Grinning, Noa teased him. “If you were connected to the ethernet, you could have set your app to let you know when I approached.”

  Dropping his gaze back to his e-reader, Kenji said, “Or you could have just said hello before you were standing right over me.” Adjusting the fragile-looking lenses in front of his eyes, he muttered, “Technology kills human decency.”

  Noa sat down beside him. “Giving you warning wouldn’t be any fun.”

  To her relief, instead of becoming defensive, Kenji gave a sort of clumsy half-smile. “Sisters.”

  Smiling at him, Noa said, “Brothers.”

  Kenji’s long fingers drifted down the side of his e-reader. “Go on,” Kenji said. “Tell me what an idiot I’m being, leaving the firm and going back to Luddeccea.”

  Noa bit the inside of her lip. “Sounds like everyone else already has.” And she agreed with them. He’d wound up disappointed with his job at the university. Politics at the academic level were the most bitter because the stakes were so low, her father always said. But then Kenji’s love of numbers and abstract mathematical theorems had gotten him a position in a prestigious firm that specialized in extraterrestrial arbitrage. He could have advanced as high as he wanted if he just worked for it. On Luddeccea, as a member of the Fourth Family settler class, he’d hit a glass ceiling.