Nearspace Trilogy

by Sherry D. Ramsey

  I glanced down at my unlined hands resting on the datapad. Maybe I'd never understand why, but if I could find her, she might have some answers. That was the driving force that had kept me plying the vastness of Nearspace for over fifty years. As long as she was out there, I'd keep looking.

  Chapter Two

  Family Ties and Knotty Situations

  Harried-looking nurses nodded pleasantly to me as I made my way up the lavender-walled corridor to Hirin's room. A few new faces regarded me with interest. I wasn't an adherent of the latest fashions in biosuits and chameleon fabrics—take a good old-fashioned pair of organic denim jeans and a simple white t-shirt, throw a long black synth-leather coat over it and you can go just about anywhere, in my opinion. Rei had long ago despaired of getting me into any of the outrageous styles she favoured, though deep down I knew they'd garner me fewer stares than my usual clothes did.

  I pushed the door of Hirin's room open gently, in case he was sleeping, but he sat hunched over an open datapad on his desk and turned when he heard the door. His grizzled face split into a grin when he saw me.

  “Luta!” He tried to get up in a hurry, wavered and had to grasp at the edge of the cluttered desk for balance.

  “Wait, Hirin, I'm coming.” I crossed the room to steady him. He swept his arms around me as soon as I was in reach and pulled me close, and I leaned in, careful not to unbalance him again, and rested my head against his chest. His heartbeat was steady but somehow delicate, and tears pricked my eyes at the sound. He seemed to have . . . faded . . . since the last time I'd seen him, two months ago. Thinner now, more fragile.

  He pulled back to hold me at arm's length. “You look beautiful, as usual,” he said, and bent to place a chaste kiss on my lips.

  I pulled the bag of herbs out of my knapsack and held them out to him. “From Vileyra. Supposed to heal all sorts of muscle and nerve damage.”

  He took them with a smile and sniffed them, wrinkled his nose and put them on the desk atop a stack of papers. Gingerly he lowered himself back into his chair, swivelling to face me with a smile. “So how is everything? Easy run this time?”

  I nodded, and sat on the end of the bed. “Good cargo, no passengers to babysit. What about you? How are you feeling?”

  Hirin shrugged. “So-so. Karro's on Sagan Station again, did you know that?”

  “He WaVed me when we went past. We had a nice chat. I hear Maja's giving you a hard time,” I said with a grin.

  “Not as hard as she gives you,” he said, grinning back. Maja and I seemed to have more difficulties every time I saw her. I think it's because I look more like her younger sister than her mother now. Karro doesn't have a problem with it, but maybe men can deal with that kind of thing easier than women can.

  Hirin's grin didn't last, though. “Maja's worried about me,” he said with a sigh. “Keeps urging me to have this test or take that therapy. I know she means well, but . . .”

  “You never liked a fuss.”

  He smiled at me. “No, I never did,” he agreed. “Let's change the subject.”

  “Okej, what are you working on now?” I nodded at the overflowing desk.

  He shrugged. “This and that. An idea for a new plasma intake system, some research. Nothing very exciting.”

  “That's what you always say, and it's always brilliant.”

  “You're my wife, you have to say that,” he said, grinning. “Listen, want to hear some interesting gossip?”

  “Sure.”

  Hirin leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers in front of him, tapping them against his lips. It was a habit he'd had since we'd met and I almost teared up again. I focused on what he was saying.

  “A doctor—a Vilisian doctor—came in here a few weeks ago,” he began. “Said he was a geriatrics researcher or some such. Wanted data on all of us, how old we were, lifestyles, everything that was wrong with us now. Admin said it was okay with them, but they wouldn't just hand over our records. He had to talk to each of us himself and as far as Admin was concerned, we could tell him whatever we wanted.

  “I had a pleasant visit with him—hell, it was someone to talk to—told him almost everything he wanted to know. He was a good listener. But he was an even better talker, if you got him started, and he let slip two things you'd want to know.”

  He coughed suddenly, the kind of cough that catches your breath hard and won't let go, and I poured him a drink of water from the carafe on his bedside table. I had to wait, with one hand on his back, while he fought to get control of his breathing again. His shoulder blades felt sharp and frail under my fingers as his body shuddered with the force of the coughing. A blonde nurse popped her head in, but smiled and left when she saw he wasn't alone. The smell of cafeteria food wafted in with her, not particularly appetizing.

  “Ho ve, sorry,” he managed finally, gasping in between sips of water. “Where was I?”

  “The Vilisian doctor,” I prompted. “Why is a Vilisian interested in human aging?”

  Hirin shrugged. “Their lifespans are about the same as ours, a little shorter, if anything. He thinks maybe he can find something the two physiologies have in common. Anyway, he said he was looking for passage to Kiando in the next few weeks. Seems the Chairman of one of the colonies there has a serious interest in anti-aging research. Not just rejuv, something better than that.”

  I shook my head. “I hope it works better than the last time.” Three decades ago a corporation—Nicadico, not PrimeCorp—had released an anti-aging treatment called “Longate” that was touted as the first tangible step toward human immortality. The research hadn't been sound, though; problematic data from medical trials was buried, a lot of money had changed hands surreptitiously, and a frightening number of people had consequently died. Turned out that the cumulative effect of several courses of treatment caused cascading organ failure on an irreversible scale.

  The Longate disaster made anti-aging research a pariah field for a long time, although people gradually overcame their aversion as the beacon of immortality brightened again. No further real breakthroughs had happened, though—whether from over-caution or scientific obstacles, I didn't know.

  Hirin nodded. “That little fiasco set the whole field back decades. This Chairman Buig, now, he seems serious. The kind of serious he's willing to back up with money. Big money, corporation money, but not for payoffs, for good solid research. Now, here's the thing. My Vilisian friend heard—by way of a long ravel of hearsay, mind you—that this Chairman has a lady researcher there with 'extensive experience' in the field. Supposedly has some revolutionary ideas.” He stopped to let the words sink in.

  “You think it could be Mother?” I didn't mean to whisper, but force of habit made me. I'd trained myself a long time ago to know that PrimeCorp could be listening anytime, anywhere.

  Hirin shrugged. “No idea, but it made me wonder. Now, it's only rumour, and who knows how many times it's passed from one ear to the next. This doctor put enough stock in it to want to travel there to see if he could catch up with her. 'Course it's all supposed to be very secret—won't be for long if the doctor keeps blabbing about it—but there it is, for what it's worth.”

  I reached out to lay a hand on his age-worn one. His skin felt warm, but fragile as tissue. He'd been helping me look for her for decades now. “Thanks, Hirin. You never let me down.”

  A brief look of discomfort crossed his face and I added, “But Kiando! That's a long run, longer than I ever take. I'd be away for too long.”

  Hirin nodded. “Three months or more. I know you never like to be gone more than six weeks at the outside.” He cocked his head disapprovingly at me. “I also know it's because of me, and I don't like that.”

  “I know. Because you never like a fuss,” I said again. “I don't do it because I think I have to. I just—don't like being away that long.”

  “Well, that's what you always say, anyway. And if it's true, it makes this a little easier . . .” His smile faded and he sighed. “I have a
favour to ask you, Luta. I was hoping I'd see you back soon for another reason, more than just passing along what I'd heard.”

  He looked so serious that fear gripped me. “What is it?”

  Hirin pulled his hand from under mine and patted my arm. “Oh, it's pretty bad, no sense trying to hide the fact.” He got up slowly and shuffled across the tiny room to the door, making sure it was shut tight before he turned to face me again, leaning back against it. He looked even paler against its cheery, robin's-egg paint. “I'm not going to live much longer.”

  I started to protest but he held up a hand. “No, it's true. The virus has resurfaced and it's attacking organs this time. Everything they can think of to fight it will only do damage in other ways. Even the bioscavengers are overwhelmed. It's a no-win situation.”

  Tears stung my eyes but I fought them down, resolved that I wouldn't cry. If he could be logical about this then so could I. “Well, then, I'm certainly not going anywhere right now, let alone Kiando. I'll stay here for as long as you—”

  “Last?” Hirin smiled. “You can say it, I don't mind, but that's not the favour I want, Luta. What I had in mind—I don't know. It might be even more difficult than staying.”

  I frowned. “What is it? You know I'll do it if I can.”

  He nodded. “I know, I know. All right.” He left the door and limped back to sit beside me on the bed, taking my hand in both of his. “I think you should find the doctor, take the job, and skip him out to Mu Cassiopeia system. And,” he took a deep breath, “I want you to take me with you.”

  As well as I knew my husband after almost sixty years together, I hadn't seen it coming. We'd agreed long ago that he wasn't up to space travel any longer. “But then you won't have access to any treatment at all! You'll probably die on the way there.”

  He just looked at me then, the blue-grey eyes I knew so very well steady on mine, and I realized suddenly that what I had said was exactly the point. My voice came out in a whisper again, although not from fear of eavesdroppers this time.

  “That's what you want, isn't it?”

  He leaned over and kissed me gently again, his lips papery and warm on mine. “I want to die in space. We spent so much time out among the stars—that's where I want to be at the end. Out there. With you.”

  That's when logic abandoned me and the tears would not be denied any longer. Hirin's arms were surprisingly strong around me while I sobbed against his sunken chest.

  I didn't call Maja when I left Hirin, although that had been my original plan. Now I wanted to get back to the Tane Ikai, see if any of the requests for passage to Kiando might be from Hirin's researcher, and let the crew know that we'd be shipping out again soon.

  I hardly remember walking back to the lot where I'd left the rented flitter, and I had to match up the numbers on the flight release chip and the hull to find the right one. My mind churned fretfully, trying to deal with too many things at once.

  While the practical part of my brain was planning the next half-hour's worth of work and piloting the flitter through the light rain that spattered the windscreen, the emotional part thrummed chaotically. Mother! Could she really be on Kiando, helping some Chairman extend his life? It didn't sound like the altruistic woman I'd known until just after my fourteenth birthday, when she disappeared from our lives in order to protect us from PrimeCorp. Decades had passed since then, I reminded myself, and who knew what her financial—or ethical—situation might be now?

  Then in mid-thought my mind would jump to Hirin! Dying? I'd known it would come, but I'd always hoped for a treatment, an anti-aging breakthrough—even a wild hope that if I found Mother, she might be able to help. She was a geneticist, after all. One thing about never aging oneself—it made aging in others much more difficult to accept. I didn't like to think about how many friends I'd lost over the years because things would just get too uncomfortable. After a while they'd start to look at me in a certain way, and I'd see them wondering. Then we'd slowly drift apart, and it was always painful.

  Which led naturally to Maja. She's not going to like this. She meant well, but there were many things we just . . . clashed over. We'd been doing it since she was a child and hated living on board a far trader. She thought that I should “act my age,” even if I didn't look it. That I should be staying on Earth, caring for Hirin. That I had an unreasonable distrust of PrimeCorp. She even thought my ongoing search for Mother was an obsessive waste of time that had played havoc in our own family. Sadly, we avoided each other most of the time. It was just easier that way.

  I flew out of the rain somewhere over the White Mountains, but I wasn't in the mood for sightseeing. I kept my eyes on the controls as I turned things over in my mind.

  Karro would be okay with Hirin's decision. He had a good relationship with both of us, loved us, but was too busy living his own life as a researcher to be overly concerned with ours. Maja would be a different story—Maja wouldn't want to say goodbye to her father, and she'd despise me even more for “taking him away.” I could play out the conversation between us before I'd even spoken to her, and it wasn't going to be pleasant.

  Right about then I realized someone was following me.

  It had been a blip on my nav screen for the past while, but my mental distractions kept me from noticing the obvious— that it shouldn't have been keeping such a steady pace with me. I hadn't turned on the autopilot because I really didn't want to get back to the ship until I'd had time to sort things through. Consequently, my speed had been erratic. I'd slow down when I got too deep in thought, then speed up again when I realized what was happening. To stay consistently with me all this time, my follower must have been deliberately matching my speed.

  The ship was just at the outer limit of my vision when I glanced out the rear view port, the sun glinting off a shiny hull of indeterminate colour. Too far away to tell what size or make it was. I checked my instrument panel, but the rental flitters were pretty basic, not equipped with magnification or scanning options. I slowed again, hoping it would catch up with me, but once again it matched my speed. That confirmed it. They were definitely following me.

  I couldn't see much else to do but stay on course for the docking station. I kept my eyes on that glint behind me, doing nothing to make my follower think I'd spotted him. The rain started up again just outside Boston, and the glint became a small black dot against the darkening sky.

  Back at the Central Mass docking station, I returned the flitter and found an excuse to chat with the rental agent for a few minutes, keeping a surreptitious watch on the other incoming flight traffic. Just about when I predicted, a top-of-the-line flitter landed at the outer edge of the ring, its bright titanium-coloured hull glistening with raindrops. No-one emerged, and the hull bore no logo or lettering. PrimeCorp, I suspected. It wouldn't be the first time they'd dogged me. Within a minute or two, it lifted off again and headed west, disappearing into the fog that had rolled in.

  I finished my conversation and, without glancing back, followed the breezeway to the docking ring where the Tane Ikai lay berthed. I still felt an itch between my shoulder blades, as if someone were back there watching me, but I tried to shake it off. No-one had even gotten out of the flitter. What I couldn't figure out was why they'd followed me. I had made no secret of where we were docked, so if someone wanted to find me, they'd taken a round about route to do it.

  PrimeCorp bastardos. I'd be damned if I'd let them rattle me. I resolutely put the whole incident out of my thoughts. I had enough to worry about.

  I emerged onto a silent bridge, all the consoles dark and the skimchairs empty, the viewscreen black. It was like coming home to an empty house, depressing and lonely. I made my way down the short corridor to my own cabin to work. At least it wasn't unusual to be alone there.

  The door of Baden's cabin slid open as I passed. “Captain! Back so soon? Thought you'd be visiting your family.”

  He'd changed out of the marine-blue biosuit he usually wore shipboard and was wearing stre
et clothes, a chameleon-fabric shirt that clung to his upper body and cycled gradually and subtly through a range of cool colours, from aquamarine to emerald and all the gradations in between. His pants looked like denim, but they were more likely bio-weave from the planet Renata. One of two inhabited planets in the Delta Pavonis system, Renata did a big export business in the organic fabric that had an inherent temperature-modulating feature.

  With his cocoa-brown hair still damp from the shower and the planes of his face freshly shaven, he looked, quite simply, gorgeous. He reminded me of Hirin when we were young, and it didn't improve my mood.

  “Don't be too long if you're leaving the ship, Baden, we're probably shipping out again soon.”

  I must have spoken more sharply than I intended, because he raised his eyebrows. “What's—okej, Captain.”

  “Was all the cargo delivered?”

  “Yes, the last client left about fifteen minutes ago. The hold's clear and the bots are sweeping up.”

  “Bona.”

  “When you say, 'soon,' Captain, do you mean—?”

  I relented. “Not before tomorrow night at the earliest, Baden. Probably not even that soon, really. Just check in tomorrow, all right?”

  He looked like he'd say something more, but he only nodded and left, his footsteps echoing in the corridor. I turned and went into my cabin. Baden had tried his charms on me for a while when he first joined my crew, but eventually he'd accepted my rebuffs graciously. It would have been easy to say I was married, but that would raise more questions than it would answer, so I'd simply acted as if I wasn't interested. If it hadn't been for Hirin, I might have been, but we'd never had that kind of marriage and I wasn't about to start now, even in the strange circumstances that had entwined us. I thought that Baden and Rei sought solace with each other occasionally, especially on the longer runs. If it made them happy, it was fine with me.