Wandering Star

by Steven Anderson

  “Not yet,” she warned, “Finish the massage first. I’ll want your mouth on me soon,” she sighed, “very soon.”

  When I was done with her back she rolled over and put her arms around my neck.

  “You know this doesn’t make me less mad at you?”

  “But it’s a start?” I asked.

  She closed her eyes as I continued the massage. “Yes, it’s a start. A damn good start.”

  CHAPTER 13

  FALLING STAR

  I WOKE THE NEXT MORNING to the smell of coffee, Alice sitting at the desk typing.

  “What time is it? I asked.

  She turned and started to open her mouth but Star answered for her. “Ship’s time is 0623 hours.”

  “I was going to say it’s time for you to get up and take a shower,” Alice added.

  I put my head back on the pillow. “I’m not sure I can. After last night I think I need additional recovery time.”

  She smiled at me. “Yeah, there are parts of me that are a little tender this morning too. Stay in bed a while. At least that way you won’t be going out trying to get yourself killed.”

  Alice was looking at me and I could see the desperate yearning in her eyes despite her smile. “So this isn’t about Hannah at all, is it? It’s about you having lost your husband and now being afraid you’re going to lose me.” I got out of bed and moved to our other chair, turning hers to face me. “I’m not going to die.”

  “That’s what he told me too.”

  I took both of her hands in mine and looked at what she had been writing. “Sending a letter to your dad?”

  She nodded. “I already sent one to the church on Bodens Gate this morning.”

  “Telling them you’re not coming?”

  “No, telling them that I’ll be there in a few days but that I seem to have picked up a husband along the way. I should have an answer back in about three hours. They’ll find work for you there. It won’t be much and you’ll hate it, but you can do your search. Until you get yourself killed.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll mostly stay in the church compound where it’s relatively safe.” She saw the confusion on my face. “Where did you think my assignment was, in the nicer parts of Eindhoven ministering to the citizens? We’ll be living in the Warrens working with people that need our help.” She sighed. “Until you get yourself killed.”

  “Stop saying that.”

  “I watched you on the Margo Islands. I counted at least twice you would’ve died if Marcus hadn’t stopped you from doing something stupid and noble. You and Jake were alike that way. And now you’re going to go do something stupid and noble and I can’t stop you.”

  I looked for a way to change the subject from my imminent death. “You said husband?”

  “Yes. I think we’ll need to formalize our relationship, if you have no objections. The church probably won’t recognize the verbal commitment made by two half naked people kneeling on the sands of an abandoned world.”

  “They should. It was a beautiful ceremony.”

  She smiled and squeezed my hands. “It was, wasn’t it? Even if our only witness was God himself.”

  “If you want me to be your husband, you should tell me something of the man that had that position before me.”

  “Philip. I suppose I should. I’ll need to tell you things about myself that I don’t want to, but I suppose you deserve to know.” She let go of my hands and tucked one leg underneath her. “I have never been very attractive, I’m too thin and angular even by Dulcinean standards. When Philip looked at me I felt as though I might possibly be the prettiest girl God ever created.”

  “I like him already.”

  She scowled at me. “Hush, I’m telling a story.”

  She thought about it for a moment before continuing. “I need to go back further. I was fourteen when my dad become Department Chair. One evening in late summer I came into his office in our home and he was working on matching graduate advisers to the grad students starting the new term. He explained what he was doing, like he always did with me no matter what he was doing. There was one boy he was struggling with. He’d been accepted into the geophysics program but the adviser already had too many students. I looked at the boy’s transcript and saw that his physics grades were marginal, but that he’d excelled in biology. I told my dad, ‘put him with Professor Bolton.’ My dad said, ‘But Bolton’s a paleontologist.’ I replied, ‘So is this boy. He just doesn’t know it yet.’

  “My dad and I reworked the entire roster that night and I stayed up way past my bedtime. Mom was so mad at him.” She smiled, remembering it.

  “You were an evil child.”

  “It gets worse. I started interfering with the undergraduate classes too. Some students would find that the classes they wanted were already closed and they had to accept alternatives that I had chosen for them. I like to think that they went on to happier, more productive careers as a result, but the truth is that I did it because it was fun. It was like moving pieces around on a game board. When I was sixteen I realized that studying transcripts wasn’t enough so I started going to some of the parties on campus in the evenings, listening to the students talk, sometimes meeting them before I either denied or allowed them the academic careers they wanted.”

  I realized listening to her that she wasn’t embarrassed telling me this. There was pride in her voice.

  “It didn’t take them long to figure out who the skinny blonde girl was and to start warning each other whenever I showed up. Some tried to be nice to me, others avoided me entirely, but that was just one more data point in deciding what I’d do with them.”

  “Did your dad know you were doing this?”

  “Of course. The students I selected during those four years performed brilliantly. It wasn’t personal. It was good for the department and the University.” She sighed. “And then there was Philip.”

  “How did you meet?”

  “He wanted to be a petroleum geologist but he was terrible at chemistry so I shut him out. He found me at some party and introduced himself. He wasn’t angry or threatening. He accepted that I was the one doing this and he sat with me and presented his case. To him I wasn’t the Professor’s daughter, or the ‘scary manipulative bitch’ the others called me when they thought I couldn’t hear them. I was the woman that could help him achieve his goals and he treated me with respect. And his eyes never left mine while he talked, deep brown, soft, expressive and welcoming…”

  “Alice?”

  “Sorry. Philip got the classes he wanted and he became one of the best petroleum geologists the University ever produced.”

  “Did you stop trying to manipulate him?”

  She laughed. “No, of course not. But whenever he caught me at it he just thought it was funny. He asked me to marry him the day he graduated with his bachelor’s degree.” She smiled at me. “Just like I planned for him to do. I was eighteen.”

  “You loved him very much.”

  “I did. I do.” She looked back at the letter she had been writing. “I think that’s all I can tell you about him right now. Go take a shower and we can get some breakfast and then take your dog for a walk before the meeting.”

  After breakfast we picked up Merrimac and went to Falling Star’s outer ring corridor.

  “Star,” I asked, “what trails can you simulate?”

  “I have the standard selection including sections of the Camino de Santiago, Pacific Crest Trail and Dulcinean Heritage Trail.”

  Alice looked at me, her eyes shining. “Show us the DHT, please.”

  The corridor faded to an illusion of a rocky trail crossing subalpine meadows. Deep glacial valleys dropped off on each side and a cool breeze had risen.

  “My mom and dad took me here every summer.” She took a couple of steps and stopped. “Star, can you set gravit
y to Dulcinea standard?”

  I felt my inner ears wobble as they adjusted to the change. “That’s not going to help you get ready for Bodens Gate, you know.”

  “I know. Indulge me. My back hurts this morning.”

  “It’s hard for me to say no to you.”

  “Good. Let’s keep it that way.” She took my hand and kissed it.

  We walked for a couple of kilometers, Mac running ahead and circling back, playing the good dog.

  “Ted, have you noticed that there are a couple of things that Mac doesn’t do that all dogs should do?”

  “You mean nothing goes in and nothing comes out?”

  “Exactly. What does he live on? Air and light? Someone,” she glanced up, “is bound to notice.”

  “I don’t think anyone will. I don’t think Mac will let them.”

  “Can we please get rid of him as soon as we’re on Bodens Gate? Sell him, give him away, turn him loose, something?”

  “Oh, yeah. As soon as we’re out of the terminal. Maybe sooner.” Mac looked up at us and I could feel that he was happy. “I think he’s looking forward to being rid of us too.”

  “We should go back into the ship, it’s almost time for your meeting. Star, close the DHT please.”

  “My meeting? You’re not coming with me?”

  “No. I want to see if I have a response back from the church and then I think I’ll have a nap. I was up too early this morning.”

  When I stopped by the door to our quarters I asked her, “Alice, do you pray for me?”

  She smiled like it was a sweet but foolish question. “Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians has been on my heart since the day we were left on Cleavus. ‘Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you.’ I never stop praying for you, Ted.” She kissed me, her hand on my collar.

  Lieutenant Kelang arrived at his office door at the same time I did. He ushered me in, offered me a cup of coffee and we talked for a few minutes about life on board Star-class ships before coming around to the Bovita clan.

  “You can review the reports your teammates filed for specific details about what happened on the way from Cleavus to Bodens Gate. RuComm is still trying to understand how the Bovita were able to get control of the ship, and Wandering Star is still on orbit at Bodens Gate. The last I heard they had yet to commit to repairing her instead of parting her out. Captain von Muller has refused to leave her and has been leading efforts to restore the AI but she’s a mess. It’s like thousands of holes have been punched through her brain. She doesn’t have direct control of any of her critical systems from the shuttles to the door locks. Half the time she still thinks she’s at Cleavus. Von Muller and his team are trying to manually erase all of her sensor information, basically wipe her memory of everything that happened from then till now. Having it in there just confuses her and it’s unreadable to us.” He sighed. “It might work but she’s an old ship and RuComm may still decide she’s more valuable as scrap.”

  “How did the Bovita get everyone off the ship when they reached Bodens Gate?”

  “She assumed orbit and made contact just as expected but when she launched her shuttles they landed in the Warrens instead of at the terminal. By the time the Central Government could respond the Bovita had melted away along with the hostages.”

  “How did they get almost three-hundred fifty people on board two shuttles designed for fifty apiece?”

  “It must have been a tight fit, but they were down to about two-hundred eighty plus hostages by the time they reached Bodens Gate.”

  “What happened? There were only eight bodies on Cleavus. I know because I watched, I mean, Alice and I buried them.”

  “Lieutenant Velena Copeland,” he said with a sharp gleam in his eyes. “The Bovita had confined the tech team to the mess hall but the crew were locked in their quarters. Velena overrode the lock on her door and made it to the bridge. She was able to get Star to identify a group of over fifty Bovita in the port aft engine room. She opened the entire compartment to space.”

  “They caught her afterwards?”

  “They did. They took her to the mess hall with the intention of making an example of her in front of the tech team. They were going to torture her to death. Your friend Hannah plead for her life and was able to convince the leader that Velena was still more valuable to them alive. Courageous women. Both of them.”

  “Do you know Velena?”

  “No, but I plan to introduce myself at the earliest opportunity.” He smiled, a look of almost love on his face. He looked back at me, squinting. “I know what you’re planning to do, Mr. Holloman.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve been working closely with Captain von Muller as he tries to save Wandering Star. We’re using my ship as a template for restoring some of her functions. After Hannah went missing he told me things that he probably wouldn’t have if he thought you were still alive, things that aren’t part of the official record. You and Ms. Vandermeer seem to be pretty tight right now coming off three months alone together on Cleavus, but you’re still planning on trying to find Hannah, aren’t you?”

  “I feel like I have to. If she’s still alive I need to know if she can be saved. And if she’s dead, well, I need to know that too. Hannah is my friend. The thought of her there in the Warrens haunts me.”

  He nodded. “As a citizen of Bodens Gate and a RuComm officer I will tell you that what you’re planning is a fool’s errand and that you’ll end up getting yourself killed.” He turned his display pad face down, at least symbolically telling me that the conversation was now confidential. “So what are you planning, Ted? There may not be much I can do but I’d like to help if I can.”

  “Alice has agreed to continue with her mission commitment to the church. I’ll be joining her in the Warrens doing some sort of support job while I try to find out what happened to Hannah. Anything you can tell me about conditions there would be helpful.”

  “I’m surprised Alice would agree to letting you search, knowing why you’re doing it.”

  “She knows I need closure. She doesn’t like it, but she understands that the thought of Hannah somewhere, in distress, wondering why no one’s come for her will never give me peace.”

  “Alice must be very brave.”

  I smiled. “I’ll tell her you said that.”

  “What are you giving her in exchange?”

  I looked at him, not understanding.

  “She must have asked something from you.”

  “Maybe she did now that you mention it. She tells me that the church will want us to be married before we arrive.”

  Kelang laughed. “She’ll let you hunt but she shortened the leash. Your Alice is both brave and cunning.” He took a sip of his coffee. “OK, I’ll tell you what I know, but the situation in the Warrens is changing rapidly. The Bovita are arguably the wealthiest clan now thanks to the RuComm ransom payments. In the past the clans always squandered any windfall, but not this time. They’ve been working to form alliances with other clans by direct payment, intimidation and targeted killings. The last intel I had showed they had absorbed six clans outright and had formed alliances with another fourteen.”

  “What’s their goal?”

  “If you asked my brother in the CGIS, Central Government Intelligence Service, the Bovita are just trying to expand their reach to have greater sway over local graft and crime. He thinks it will all soon fall apart into fractious infighting.”

  “And your opinion?”

  “I think they’re after something bigger. They killed their hereditary leaders back on Cleavus. To me it looks like they’re trying to build a coalition to challenge the Central Government itself. The CG controls about a third of the population and ninety percent of the wealth. Keeping the clans fighting each other provides stability and a cheap source of
labor for the citizens in the short term but it’s not stable in the long run. If the Bovita succeed the CG could have a problem in a year or two. Maybe less.”

  “So my search will need to start with the Bovita.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “It’s possible they took her again to avenge what Velena did. Being with the church will provide you with a small amount of protection. The church has traditionally been respected, they don’t play in the clan struggles and they provide services the clans can’t. But you’ll need to be very careful. There are no maps and the growth of the Warrens has been organic. No one knows what might be down a particular alley other than those that live there.”

  “I wish you could stay on orbit and provide imagery for me.”

  “I can’t, but you know, I suspect Captain von Muller will be needing to test Wandering Star’s survey systems from time to time over the next few months. I’ll send him a note to expect you contacting him.”

  “Thank you.”

  Lieutenant Kelang stood and we shook hands. “RuComm was wrong to leave Hannah there without at least trying to find her. I wish you luck and safe travels in the Warrens. When you’re done and if you want to come back to RuComm let me know. I’ll write you a letter of recommendation.”

  “Thank you. One last thing, Lieutenant. Do you think Captain Adriensoon would have time for a wedding ceremony before we reach Bodens Gate?”

  “It’s been a while since we had one of those on a RuComm ship but I’ll see what we can set up.” He shook his head. “You lead a complicated life, Mr. Holloman.”

  Alice was asleep when I got back to our quarters, Mac’s nose peeking out from under the bunk. I sat down next to her and gently moved her hair away from her eyes.

  “Hey, sleepy head, it’s almost time for lunch.”

  She yawned and stretched. “Not just head. Whole body is sleepy.”

  “How would you like to get married in the next day or two?”

  She opened her eyes. “Is that a proposal?”

  “I think you’ve been my wife since the night of the blue t-shirt.” She smiled, her eyes crinkling. “But yes, it’s a proposal.”