Nearspace Trilogy

by Sherry D. Ramsey

  “They’re letting us go,” Pita said after a moment.

  “Pretty much what I expected. We didn’t do much except annoy them, after all. And that’s all I wanted to do for now.”

  That, and make certain Paixon hadn’t tried to pull a fast one, switching ships. Baden Methyr’s voice on the comm was all the confirmation I needed for that. I sent a quick encrypted message to Sedmamin to let him know I’d located them and would stay on Paixon’s tail. He’d no doubt respond with a demand for a full report, but I’d send that when I got around to it.

  “How closely do you want to follow them?” Pita asked.

  “Circle around outside their scanner range, then backtrack and pick them up again. They’ve got to be headed for Mars, so we’ll tag along, same as we were before. Stay at the outside edge of the tracker range, and don’t let them spot us.”

  I slipped the wrapper off the energy bar and took a bite, chewing reflectively. “To you, Dad,” I said, lifting my mug in a toast. “To persistence. To revenge.”

  “Nice one,” Pita said, and I rolled my eyes. If she were a real person, I’d probably have strangled her by now.

  I kept the rest of my toast to myself, because although I was pretty certain of Pita’s loyalty to me, she still didn’t need to know my every thought. To Alin Sedmamin, I thought, arrogant, self-important little bastardo that he was, for making it all possible.

  Chapter 5 – Luta

  Pavlovian Responses and Other Intriguing Behaviours

  SEVEN DAYS LATER, we arrived at the planet Anar in the Lambda Saggitae system, where we were to meet the Lobor historian Cerevare Brindlepaw. Being only one wormhole skip from Sol System, both inhabited planets, Anar and Damir, had developed quickly and boasted thriving, cosmopolitan populations. We’d made plenty of cargo runs between Sol System and Lambda Saggitae in the last ten years, when Hirin was in the nursing home and I favoured shorter trade hops.

  I won’t say that by the time we got there, the crew hated me, but I might not have been their favorite person anymore. No-one had spent any more time immersed in private projects if I could provide them with an alternative. Every inch of the ship had been scrubbed and polished, accompanied by much grumbling.

  “It’s long overdue,” I told them, “and if we’re going to participate in a Protectorate mission, I’m not giving them any reason to complain.”

  Every system had been overhauled. I invested in upgrades for navigation, communications, and the First Aid station while we were on Mars, as well as new fuel recombinators and a matter generation enhancement package. I decided we could afford it; after all, I didn’t have to pay Hirin’s nursing home bills anymore. The crew installed it all on our way to Anar. I insisted that Maja step up and show me how serious she was about learning navigation; and she was as good as her word, buying the newest VR training program and starting in on her lessons. With Yuskeya to act as tutor when needed, I felt confident she’d do well.

  The only one I didn’t have much control over was Hirin, but I didn’t really need to worry about him. He bought a whole new database system for the ship and set to work installing and configuring it, hoping it would give him access to more data on the scurrilous dealings of PrimeCorp. He and Viss disappeared for a few hours one afternoon on Mars, and when they returned he had several datapackets that I didn’t ask questions about. His was the only obsession I didn’t see fit to interfere with, and I freely admit it was because I wanted to see those PrimeCorp bastardos get what they deserved, too. If Hirin could facilitate that, he surely had my support, for all that they’d put the two of us through. To say nothing of Mother.

  I’m not saying that hard work solved all the problems–it didn’t. Viss still wasn’t speaking to Yuskeya unless necessary, Rei seemed to cycle through periods of grim irritability, and Hirin and I sidestepped carefully around the question of who was the real captain of the Tane Ikai, without ever really addressing it. Everyone was simply so busy that they didn’t have much time left over to dwell on their problems, or clash with anyone else over them. Just as I’d hoped.

  So it was a peaceful, quiet, clean, and overhauled Tane Ikai that arrived at the main spaceport outside Heliosin on the planet Anar a week later. In light of what happened later I’d like to claim prescience, but in reality it was plain dumb luck.

  IT’S NOT OFTEN that I find myself nervous. I’m eighty-four, for goodness’ sake, despite still looking thirty thanks to my mother’s efficient little nanobioscavengers. I’ve had all the experiences, and more, that one might expect for an octogenarian far trader captain, wife, and mother of two. But two things bothered me about collecting this Lobor historian. In the first place it was her specialty—the Chron were a sort of bogeyman for those of us who hadn’t been alive during the Chron War. It was difficult to separate fact from fiction, and myths abounded about these terrifying figures who had come to the brink of destroying humanity (as well as Vilisians and Lobors). It felt disconcerting to meet someone who knew so much about them. It brought them closer than I wanted them to be.

  And in the second place, I had spent surprisingly little time around Lobors. Although the wolflike aliens had been our allies since the time of the Chron War, I simply didn’t know much about them. I’d encountered them occasionally in business dealings, but the interactions had always been very casual. I’d never had one on my crew, although it wasn’t by choice, simply chance. So I’d never known a Lobor very well, and now I felt that lack very keenly.

  I went to meet Cerevare Brindlepaw with more than a little trepidation.

  I’d studied the ship’s database on everything Lobor, but words on a screen can only tell you so much. In theory, practice is just like theory, but in practice, practice is not at all like theory. So while I was prepared for Cerevare’s springy step and the fervid heat of her paw-like hand when she offered it to me, I was surprised by the twinkle of humour in her liquid brown eyes and the disconcerting way a smile stretches over a muzzle. Evolution on Nanear had obviously favoured something that might have resembled a German Shepard or a wolf on Earth.

  “Captain Paixon,” she said with a nod, and I gave her points immediately for pronouncing it correctly, pay-zon. I took her offered hand, skin the colour of raw umber and lightly furred on the back with soft golden-brown hairs, prepared for the fervent heat all Lobors radiated. She wore the loose, linen-like garments that Lobors had preferred since humans first encountered them, as survivors of a spaceship wreck on the planet Renata. A sky-blue shirt wrapped her upper body and cowled around the point where her head sloped gradually out to her shoulders; Lobors had no neck to speak of. An intricately patterned, wide fabric sash encircled her waist, dangling long, tasselled ties. Billowy chocolate brown trousers, embroidered in blue at the hems, completed the outfit. Lobors as a rule wore no shoes, the rough, callous-like pads on their feet making them redundant except in the worst terrain or harsh weather. I’d never learned or heard of any easy or obvious way to determine Lobor gender—the females didn’t have obvious breasts, like humans and Vilisians did—so I was glad that Lanar had told me she was female.

  I helped her load a couple of duffel-type bags into a dock scooter and she climbed in beside me. The Tane Ikai was docked in the outer ring since we weren’t planning on being here more than six hours, too far to walk from the passenger lounge.

  “I have never been further from home than this system,” she remarked as we drove along wide, domed corridors to the outer ring. High glass ceilings arched overhead, displaying a cloudless swath of sky that tended a little more to green than Earth’s clear blue. Tall potted trees and low greenery studded the route, contributing to the impression of being outdoors. We passed busy kiosks offering food, drink, supplies, and trinkets, teased by scents of spices and hot oil, baking fruit breads, and the aromas of caff and chai and cazitta. Tall lighted boards displayed docking information, tourist advice, departures, and arrivals. I was glad the scooters had designated travel lanes; the walkways were filled with travellers,
businesspeople, and sightseers, shopping and strolling and jostling each other.

  Cerevare’s Esper was excellent, accented in an odd way and slightly lisping on the -s sounds, but perfectly understandable.

  “Do you mind space travel?” I asked.

  “No, it has no adverse physical effects on me, if that is what you mean.” She flashed a toothy grin. “But as a Chron historian, my work is more concerned with travelling mentally into the past than travelling physically around in Nearspace.”

  I grinned back. “I can understand that. The Chron didn’t leave much for you to study.”

  “No, it is not like archaeology. Nothing to dig up, at least not in Nearspace. If we ever found out where they came from . . .”

  She trailed off, staring at the crowds of travellers hurrying this way and that in the pedestrian lanes. “Well, I hope you’ll find the accommodations acceptable,” I told her. “I don’t know if anyone told you, but we’re nothing fancy.”

  “When one spends long periods of time hunched over datascreens or historical transcripts, surroundings become a somewhat secondary concern. I am certain I shall be quite comfortable.” She watched the corridor curving away ahead of us in silence, then added, “This is very strange for me, to be working in secrecy.”

  “The circumstances are unusual,” I agreed, steering the cart around a couple who had stopped theirs and were apparently arguing over directions.

  Cerevare shook her head ruefully. “It is usually more a problem of trying to attract any notice of what I am doing, than to keep it quiet.”

  “It’s not a popular field of inquiry, I take it.”

  “Not for many years now,” she said. She had high-set, lightly-furred ears with delicate vestigial points, and one twitched a little as she spoke. Two small gold rings pierced one side of it, tinkling softly with the twitch. She gestured with an elegant hand, and when her sleeve fell away, I noticed a tattoo on the inside of her wrist, where the hair became fine and disappeared below her smooth palm—a line of symbols I didn’t recognize. “For me,” she continued, “there is always the question of why. Why did the war start? Why did it end? My ancestors suffered great losses in the war, as did yours, I’m sure.”

  She must have seen me notice her tattoo, because she held it out so I could see it better. “Chron lettering,” she said with a shrug, “copied from a captured ship during the war. I wear it to symbolize my life’s work.”

  “What does it mean?”

  Cerevare chuckled. “I have no idea. That, you see, is part of its symbolism. My committment to the unknown.”

  I smiled. “So one day you might find out that it means ‘airlock’ or ‘engines’?”

  “Or something even less desirable,” she said with a wink. “Whatever it means, I will be happy, because it will mean I have learned something new about them.”

  “I admire your passion,” I told her, and I meant it.

  “I think it is important for the future,” she said. “How can we lay the war to rest when we don’t understand it?”

  “It was a long time ago,” I offered hesitantly.

  “But not longer than memory,” she replied. “And without the answers to those two questions of yesterday, how can tomorrow be assured?”

  I thought about that, what she was really saying. “You think they could come back.” We rolled to a stop in front of the open airlock dockway that led to the Tane Ikai’s forward hatch.

  “I think if they came back, there should be someone who understands all the whys,” she answered.

  “Sounds like a tall order,” I said, unloading her bags from the scooter.

  “And one that I cannot hope to completely fulfill,” she said, climbing out and straightening the folds of her leggings. “But I will do what I can.”

  “That’s all any of us can hope for, Cerevare. Welcome aboard.” And I led her inside to meet the rest of the crew.

  Chapter 6 – Luta

  The Past Throws a Long Shadow

  WE WERE ONLY two days out from Anar when I received a surprise message from Lanar. Surprise, because I didn’t think he’d want to bring the Cheswick close enough for an FTL WaVE message when we were trying to avoid attention. But Baden commed me right in the middle of my tae-ga-chi workout to tell me that Lanar was signalling. I frowned at having to interrupt my form, but took it on the encrypted screen in my quarters.

  “Hello again, little brother,” I said, towelling off my face as I plunked myself down in my chair. “How am I supposed to keep a low profile with a Protectorate patrol ship on my tail?”

  “I’m keeping my distance, don’t worry,” he assured me with a grin. He leaned away from his screen and I could see the Protectorate plaque on the wall behind him, the motto In Astra Pax—Peace Among the Stars—curving under the stylized atom-and-stars emblem. “We got a WaVE upgrade at Willis Point, so I don’t actually have to get too close.”

  I smiled. “Yes, Baden upgraded our systems on the return trip from Kiando.” I held up a hand to forestall his next question. “I don’t know how he got hold of Protectorate tech before you did, so don’t even ask me. You’ll have to ask him yourself. If you really want to know, which you might not.”

  “You might be right about that. Listen, I heard you had a little trouble en route to Mars.”

  I almost asked how he knew about that, but I remembered in time that we’d filed an incident report when we docked at Mars.

  “It was nothing we couldn’t handle, but—it was strange.” I leaned back in my chair and tapped my fingers against my lower lip. “It wasn’t like a pirate attack—he had next to nothing for weapons. A few flash-pack torps, that was it. As soon as we fired our own warning shot across his path, he took off with some kind of drive that wasn’t standard issue on the tub he was driving, and sent—”

  I stopped—too late.

  “Sent what?” He pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes at me. “Seems like you left something out of that report you filed on Mars.”

  I blew out a sigh. “Okej, you got me. I didn’t think they needed to know, and it would have raised more questions that I didn’t want to answer. He sent off an encrypted message to PrimeCorp main.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “And you know this . . . how?”

  “Mm-hmm. See, that’s one of those questions. The ones I don’t want to answer.” I grinned at him.

  “You wouldn’t happen to know what the message said, would you?”

  I studied Lanar’s face on the screen for a minute, trying to read his eyes. I could lie and tell him I didn’t know, but he might already know the answer to the question, if Yuskeya had reported the incident to him herself. Which it was quite likely she had. The thought triggered a brief flash of annoyance, but I suppressed it quickly. I knew she had to divide her loyalties, and really, it wasn’t a bad thing to have Lanar in the loop regarding possible threats to the Tane Ikai. I only wished I was always in the loop about what he knew and didn’t know.

  “A couple of words—’location’ and ‘Paixon’,” I said finally. “So he was definitely targeting us specifically. It was almost like he was testing us.”

  “To see what weapons you had on board, yes. He took off after he got a taste of them. Hmmm.” He closed his eyes for a moment, then shook his head. “Watch your back, Luta. Not only because of Cerevare and the new wormhole and what’s beyond it. PrimeCorp obviously isn’t through with you—with us.”

  “Obviously. Lanar . . . do you think Mother’s safe?”

  He laughed. “I don’t think Mother’s been safe for decades, but she’s managed to take care of herself all right.”

  “I know. This thing with that space pirate, or whoever he was, though, it’s got me worried about her.”

  Lanar squinted at me a little. “I don’t think they were actually much of a threat.”

  “Neither do I, it’s just—like you said, PrimeCorp doesn’t seem to be through with us. I thought once they got their hands slapped on Vele, they’d back off for a whil
e, at least. But if they’re still dogging me, then they’re not likely to leave her alone, either. And now they know she has connections on Kiando.”

  “Gusain Buig will keep her safe. And she hasn’t moved to release her data on the bioscavs yet. I think she’s waiting until after she meets with Schulyer Corp.”

  “Buig and Duntmindi are no match for PrimeCorp. And I know Alin Sedmamin didn’t take much of a hit personally, but PrimeCorp doesn’t like to lose, even a little bit.”

  “I think they’ll tread more carefully now, at least for a while,” he argued. “At the very least, we put them on notice that we’re watching what they do very carefully.”

  I shook a finger at him. “You’re the one who told me the Protectorate thinks PrimeCorp is up to something big,” I reminded him. “I hope Mother—”

  “What? She’s spent the last seventy years running from them. She knows what they’re like.”

  I sighed. “I know. But would you send her a message for me? Tell her what you told me. To watch her back. I thought they’d leave us alone for a while, but that pirate’s got me thinking otherwise. I don’t think they’re finished yet.”

  “I’ll tell her.” He quirked a smile. “And Luta, give the Protectorate some credit, would you? We won’t let PrimeCorp take over Nearspace simply because they want to.”

  “I know that, Lanar,” I said, “but do they?”

  AS I EXPECTED, my crew gave me no cause for concern in the way they got along with our passenger. Apparently Viss had known numerous Lobors during his checkered past and seemed able to effortlessly keep Cerevare giggling at his outrageous stories. Everyone was friendly and considerate, and Cerevare herself kept mostly to her quarters, hunched, no doubt, over those datascreens she’d mentioned to me in the scooter. She wasn’t antisocial, but she plainly had work to do and didn’t want to interfere with ours.