Nearspace Trilogy

by Sherry D. Ramsey

  “We’re fine, thank you,” I finally breathed.

  “You may speak my name as Fha,” the hologram said. “And how are you called?”

  “Captain Luta Paixon,” I said. “These are my crewmates, Commander Blue and Engineer Feron. How can you—why can we understand you so well?”

  “We have not yet had many dealings with the inhabitants of the linked systems you call Nearspace,” it said, “and those we have had were a long time past. But we still retain a database of language. We welcome you here, although the circumstances are unfortunate.”

  Not many dealings? I thought, but didn’t say. I nodded. “We apologize for entering this system without invitation or warning. We were stranded—”

  The holographic crow nodded. “Our vessel had advised us of your proximity to the wormhole. We apologize for the delay in communicating with you when you arrived in this system. There was some debate over whether contact would be in your best interests or not.”

  “Well, you’ve certainly made contact now,” Viss muttered.

  “Yes, the incursion of the made it unavoidable.” Fha sighed. “I suppose it was inevitable, since they seek to involve you in their plans again.”

  I glanced at Viss and Yuskeya, who both shrugged minutely. “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand what you said. The what?”

  It cocked its head at me in a very birdlike manner. “You call them Chron, I believe.”

  I thought fast. “We’re anxious to know anything you can tell us about that species. They attacked Nearspace a long time ago—”

  “We know,” it said, beak bobbing. “We stopped them.”

  The calm statement almost stopped my breathing. I heard Viss or Yuskeya—possibly both of them—gasp behind me. These aliens were responsible for the abrupt end of the Chron War so many years ago?

  “Then,” I finally stammered, “I suppose I should thank you. By all accounts, we were losing that war when the Chron disappeared.”

  “You are most welcome,” the crow-like being said. “If it would be of interest to you, I can make available to you our database of information on that species.”

  “That would be wonderful,” I told the alien, thinking of Cerevare’s face when she found out about the offer.

  “I should explain,” the alien said, “that it is merely the restrictions of biology which prevent me from speaking with you in person. Our atmospheric requirements are too different to permit a physical conversation. I will convert the data into a form usable by you and have it delivered to your ship.”

  “Can you help us return to Nearspace?” I hadn’t meant to ask it so bluntly, but all other considerations aside, it was the one thing I had to know as quickly as possible.

  It hesitated. “I hope so. The circumstances are . . . unsettled at the moment. Would it be agreeable for you to remain here for a period of time?”

  “There are other, urgent matters I would like to discuss with you,” I said, thinking of the dark-shrouded Stillwell. “And reasons why we must return to Nearspace as soon as possible. We can stay for only a short time.”

  The alien nodded. “I will gather the data, and we will assess the situation. May I appear in this form in your vessel if need be?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Then I will return soon. As you say, gis la revido, Captain.” It inclined its head, and I had an instant to realize that it did not have glossy feathers, but a gelatinous-looking skin, almost like that of the station. And then the hologram was gone.

  Viss, Yuskeya, and I regarded one another. “Suddenly I don’t feel so much like exploring,” Viss said.

  I nodded. “Let’s see what the others make of this.” I knew they’d been able to see and hear over the suit cams and mics, but no-one on the bridge had said a word over the comm.

  So we left the long, black bay and headed for the bridge of the Tane Ikai, and when I walked into it a few minutes later I thought that it had never been so comfortingly familiar.

  “SO, CAPTAIN, DO we trust these crows? And how the hell do they know Esper?” Rei seemed her irrepressible self when we entered the bridge, although I noticed that Gerazan wasn’t sitting next to her as he usually did. He’d taken the chair at the auxiliary engineering console.

  So Rei had the same first impression of their appearance. “I’m inclined to trust them for now, but let’s not call them ‘crows’. I don’t want to offend them.”

  “How about ‘Corvids’?” asked Viss. “The genus is Corvus and there are numerous species, but generally the crows and their cousins—ravens, jackdaws—they’re known as Corvids.”

  The things that man knew. Always surprising me.

  “Corvids it is, then, for now,” I said. “Unless and until they correct us or tell us what they call themselves. As to how they know Esper . . . I hope that’s one of the things they’ll explain to us later.” I paused, then continued. “But yes, I think I do trust them. It was only a hologram, I know, but I didn’t get any kind of bad feeling from it. And if they really did stop the Chron—”

  “We have only their word for that,” Hirin reminded me. “For any of it, really.”

  “I know but—Viss, Yuskeya? You were out there. What do you think?”

  Their replies were forestalled by the quiet eruption through one of the starwise walls of a thin black tentacle. It deposited a datachip on the nearest board and disappeared through the hull wall, making only the slightest sucking noise. It left no trace or indication of its passing.

  “Whoa,” Baden said.

  Nobody else said a word.

  “I suppose,” I said finally, “this is the datachip our hologram host, Fha, offered to share with us. About the Chron.” I walked over and picked it up. It replicated a regular datachip, although the surface held an odd sheen, as if it was wet, but it wasn’t. “Cerevare, I guess this is for you.”

  The Lobor historian took it from my outstretched hand like someone in a dream. “Thank you, Captain. Do you think . . . I mean . . . do you think it’s safe to use it?”

  I fetched a deep breath and let it escape in a sigh. “From what we’ve seen here so far, I think these Corvids could snuff us out any time they wanted to. Luckily for us, they don’t seem to want to. So I’m betting that datachip is as safe to use as any of ours.”

  “In that case—if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go to my quarters and start reviewing it.” Her lupine face was as close to grinning as it could get.

  “Let us know what you find,” I said. “So, what do people think? What impression did you get from the holo?”

  “I’m inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt,” Viss said. “If only because, as you’ve said, they haven’t taken any of their many opportunities to do us harm.”

  Rei nodded. “I agree. But I want to know more about what they’re doing here with this station, in this system. And more about their dealings with the Chron. And how they know our language.”

  I almost laughed. “Start making a list.”

  Two things happened then. Jahelia Sord signalled from her room, and a medical alarm went off from First Aid. Yuskeya hurried off to see to her patient, and I took the call from Sord on the ship’s comm.

  “I noticed that things got pretty quiet, all of a sudden,” she said. She spoke most of the time in a practiced monotone, although sometimes she drawled her words almost mockingly.

  “We’re at a . . . station,” I told her. “I’m not sure how long we’ll be here. But there’s no apparent danger at this point.”

  She chuckled humourlessly. “I wasn’t worried about danger,” she said. “I was simply curious.” She broke the connection.

  I shook my head. For the amount of trouble she was in, she didn’t act worried enough. At some point, I had to confront her about how she could work for PrimeCorp, doing the obviously illegal things they asked of her, but there certainly hadn’t been an opportunity yet. And I was afraid I wouldn’t like her reasons—maybe even afraid they’d make sense to me. Hirin and I had been t
hrough tough times, when jobs with questionable ethics but good money had been tempting. But I couldn’t worry about that now.

  Yuskeya’s voice came over the comm. “Captain, can I see you in First Aid?”

  I crossed the bridge and went through Sensors to the sickbay. Yuskeya waited at the door, her face grave.

  “I’m sorry, Captain. Chen has died.”

  Sad news, but not entirely surprising. “Can you isolate the cause?”

  “Another fever, a bad one, and the meds couldn’t control it. I had him in a medi-wrap trying to cool him down physically, but it wasn’t enough. He slipped deeper into the coma and . . . didn’t wake up.”

  She watched me, clearly wondering how I’d take the news.

  “Thanks, Yuskeya. I know you did all you could for him. We’ll have to put the body down in one of the cargo pods and refrigerate it until we get to Nearspace. I don’t—I don’t want to jettison the body here, even after we leave the station.”

  “I know. I feel the same way. Will you tell Gerazan, or do you want me to do it?”

  I wasn’t feeling particularly enamoured of Gerazan Soto at the moment, but I knew there’d been nothing personal in what he’d said to Yuskeya. “I’ll go and tell everyone now. They’re all on the bridge, except for Cerevare.”

  I steeled myself as I returned to the bridge to tell the others. I’d have to be careful to avoid meeting Hirin’s eyes. I knew the depth of worry I’d see reflected there would be matched only by my own.

  Chapter 22 – Luta

  Through a Glass, Darkly

  AFTER I TOLD them about Chen’s death, I set the crew to checking the ship for damage or anything untoward. We couldn’t scan beyond the ship and the docking bay in which it sat, but we could hardly complain about that. We were, apparently, safely out of harm’s way—at least for now.

  At least, the ship was. As soon as everyone was busy, I went to my quarters to have a nap. I didn’t tell anyone that was my plan. As I broke the news to the others about Chen’s death, fatigue hit me like a flash-pack torp hitting an ice cream cone. I was glad I’d sat in the big chair before I told them. Gerazan Soto took it hard, as I’d expected he would. I watched Rei, her momentary irritation with him faded, cross to the chair where he sat and slip an arm around his shoulders. His jaw tightened, and his eyes glistened with unshed tears. He was now the sole survivor of the Domtaw—possibly the sole survivor of the two ships the Protectorate had sent into the unknown system, if the Stillwell was not merely in some kind of stasis. That was a heavy burden of guilt for anyone to carry. He nodded gravely when I told him my plan to preserve Chen’s body until we made it back to Nearspace.

  “Captain—I hope there are no hard feelings about what I said earlier. It wasn’t anything to do with you personally.”

  “I know. It’s all right.” I found my own annoyance had fled as well. I had bigger things to worry about.

  I assigned Gerazan to help Viss in checking over the ship, thinking it would be good for him to have something useful to do. He accepted the job without hesitation.

  And then I excused myself and made my way down the corridor to the quarters Hirin and I shared. I stopped at the head on the way there and drew a shallow basin of water to rinse my face. I’m feeling all of my eighty-four years at once. It seemed that as long as I kept moving, crisis to crisis, I could manage. But any sort of lull, and the fatigue crashed in on me, threatening to bear me down under its weight.

  My hands shook as I scooped up water, splattering the narrow rim around the sink and the floor below it. I hadn’t mentioned the aches and trembles in my arms and legs to anyone, not even Yuskeya. She was sure to tell Hirin, and he was already worried enough. It wasn’t difficult to find regular pain meds in First Aid; I knew the brand names on the injectors, even if I’d never needed them myself before. And dosing was merely a matter of reading the labels. Before long she’d surely notice her supplies running low, but I’d deal with that confrontation when it came.

  I closed my eyes and dragged more water over my face, relaxing into the cool, soothing tingle of it against my skin. I repeated the motion until the tremor in my hands abated, then rested them on the rim of the sink. I let my head droop toward the water, feeling the delicious stretch in my neck muscles. Maybe Yuskeya and mother’s software were wrong, and I could put most of this down to stress. We were stranded in an unknown system surrounded by hostile and unknown aliens, after all. That could take a toll on anyone.

  Drip, drop, plop. The water I’d splashed dripped over the edge of the sink and onto the floor. I’d apparently made quite a mess. I sighed and opened my eyes. Better clean it up.

  The bright red droplets diffusing in the basin told a different story. Not water dripping. Blood—my blood—splashing steadily from my nose into the water. I watched, mesmerized, as the colour swirled and fanned through the water like a red silk scarf floating lazily in a breeze. I grabbed for tissue and crammed it against my nose, checking in the mirror to make sure none had stained my t-shirt. That would be difficult to hide. It was clean. The shakes came back and I had to use both hands to hold the wad of tissue in place. My legs chose that moment to tremble as well, and I sat down heavily on the toilet, forcing myself to lean forward and pinch the bridge of my nose with shaking fingers. Our son, Karro, had suffered frequent nosebleeds as a child, so I knew the drill. I counted seconds, forcing myself to go slowly and breathing shallowly through my mouth. Sixty. Then sixty more. Three more times, for five minutes.

  I pulled away the tissue, grimacing as it tore, shreds stuck to my face with thick, dark clots. Threw the handful in the recycler, gingerly released the bridge of my nose. The flow seemed to have stopped. I released the water in the basin and drew fresh, repeating the motions of cleansing my face, but with a distinct purpose now. The water was a deep pink by the time my face was clean again.

  Forcing myself to take deep, calming breaths, I concentrated on tidying away every drop of water and scrap of tissue. When the head was spotless again, I regarded myself in the mirror. I looked pretty much as usual. A little flushed, perhaps, as if I’d just finished a mild tae-ga-chi workout. I ran my hands through my hair, combing it with my fingers, which no longer shook. I thought I was presentable enough to open the door.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I whispered to myself in the mirror before I left the room.

  But the mirror had no answer.

  DESPITE THE NOSEBLEED episode, or perhaps because of it, I fell into my bed and slept for two solid hours. I’d been on the bridge only a few minutes, getting progress reports that basically said not much of anything had happened, when a Corvid reappeared.

  The hologram sprang to life on the bridge, close to Rei’s pilot board. It gave her more of a start than she’d admit to later.

  “You have suffered a loss,” the crow-like being began. “We sympathize.”

  It was still wrapped in the same burlap-coloured robe, all but the head and what might be considered a neck hidden by its folds. Was it Fha, the same creature that had spoken to us before? It was impossible to tell. The appearance and voice seemed identical, so I was inclined to think it was. The more intriguing question was, how did they know about Chen’s death? They must have a way of monitoring us, the same way we’d identified the scientists on the operant moon. I hoped that was all it was.

  I decided to risk calling it by name. “Thank you, Fha. It is, I’m afraid, another reason our return to Nearspace grows more imperative.”

  It didn’t correct me, so it must indeed be Fha. It nodded, beak-like mouth bobbing up and down. “We understand. I have data to share that may affect your decision.” I had the impression of movement beneath the cloak, but no hands or wings appeared.

  “May I ask a question, first?”

  “Of course.”

  I had to phrase this diplomatically. “The other ship that was in the system with us—it was encased in a dark field. We couldn’t contact them or scan the vessel. Are they—will they be—”
/>   Fha nodded. “They are perfectly safe. The stasis field was for their protection—I am only sorry we could not protect the other ship in the same manner. It will dissipate over time—not overly long by your standards. They will be confused, but unharmed.”

  I let out a long sigh, relieved. “Thank you.”

  Fha nodded. “Now, have you studied the information on the species you call Chron?”

  “Not all of us, but our expert is still reviewing it. She will explain it to the rest of us.”

  “Efficient,” Fha noted. “I will, then, tell you only what is necessary to understand the current situation.”

  Another hologram appeared in the air above the Corvid’s head, and it took me a few minutes to realize what I was seeing. A wormhole, represented from the outside. It looked like a pencil stuck through several layers of paper or cardboard.

  “The Chron discovered their first wormhole at about the same time as your species did,” the Corvid said, “but their reaction was very different. Instead of seeking out new worlds to colonize peacefully, they went in search of conquest. It is an old tale, oft repeated. Some beings cannot stand the thought of being less than foremost among all they encounter.

  “When they discovered a wormhole into our space, we realized quickly that they were not interested in peaceful coexistence or economic relations. We were so different from them that they actually seemed indifferent to communicating with us—in fact, they viewed us as . . . prey.” Fha shrugged as if shaking off the unpleasant thought. “They declared war, not so much formally as by an immediate attempt to exterminate us. Their technology was inferior, however, and they quickly abandoned their hostilities. We were happy and relieved to see them go.”

  “If it’s not impolite to ask—what should we call your species?” I asked when Fha paused.

  The beak-like mouth opened and closed in a staccato rhythm—the equivalent of laughter? “Your own term for us—Corvids—is perfectly acceptable. And I, should you be wondering, am one of the females of my people.”