A young brunette woman in a pink dress, overlaid with a white apron, came up to the table carrying a heavy tray. “Morning, ladies and gents. Let’s see here. There’s coffee, coffee and…mm, coffee.” She put thick mugs of coffee in front of each of us. “The rest will be right along, ‘kay?” She winked at Dalton and headed back behind the counter and into what looked like a rear room—a kitchen as antique as this place, I supposed, but it wouldn’t really be there.
Dalton got a silly grin on his face as he watched the waitress move away.
“You realize you’re ogling Lyth, right?” Juliyana told him.
Dalton’s smile faded. “I’m enjoying the ambience, alright?”
Juliyana laughed.
“Actually, I’m right here,” Lyth said. The façade he had been using last night moved up to the end of our table. “May I join you?”
“Coffee, honey?” the waitress called from behind the counter.
“Yes, please,” Lyth told her and sat on the end of the bench as Dalton straightened up and shuffled closer to the window and its distracting view. He put his hands on the table and looked at me. “I presumed you would wish to discuss our immediate future.”
The waitress put an identical cup of coffee in front of Lyth.
We all held our breath, watching as he picked up the mug and appeared to sip it.
And the level of coffee in the mug was lower, when he put the mug back.
I stuck my finger in the dark liquid, felt the sting of hot coffee. I moved to put the finger in my mouth and suck off the coffee, watching Lyth all the time, waiting for him to protest that I should not. He just stared steadily back.
“Danny, no,” Juliyana said quickly as I closed my lips around the damp finger, proving she’d had the same thought I had, that the coffee and the mug was just more of Lyth—nanobots split off and made to look like the coffee we were drinking and the cups holding that coffee.
“Tastes exactly like real coffee,” I said, as Dalton and Juliyana watched intently.
“That’s because it is real coffee,” Lyth assured us. “But we’re getting distracted,” he pointed out.
I blinked, and tried to push away the question blazing in my mind, namely, where the hell he put the coffee he was “drinking”? “Yes,” I said, regrouping. “Juliyana and I have spent a lot of money and a lot of time trying to find you, Dalton. You arriving at Devonire is a coincidence I’m still not happy about, but that’s immaterial for right now. The larger question is where do we go now? I’ve had some thoughts about that—”
“Back up a few steps, Danny,” Dalton said. “You need to fill me in on this whole Noam thing.”
“No, we don’t,” Juliyana said, her tone flat.
“The fuck you don’t,” Dalton shot back. “This is my ship—”
“Danny outranks you,” Juliyana interrupted.
We were back to that. I slapped the table to get their attention. “Just shut up for a moment, will you?”
“No,” Dalton told me. “I was here first. It was an abandoned ship. It’s mine by salvage rights.”
“You can’t even steer the thing,” Juliyana shot back, looking amused. “I’d say you belong to the Lythion, not the other way around.”
“Shut up! Both of you!” I cried.
They shut up. Dalton glared at me.
Lyth raised his hand. “I may be able to offer some clarity on this issue.”
“Go,” I told him.
“My orders were to collect all of you. I just happened to scoop up Dalton first—no offence,” he added, glancing at Dalton.
Dalton pushed back into the corner of the seat, angled so he could glare at all of us. “None taken.”
“I was also instructed to obey all of you,” Lyth added. “That would imply that if any of you own the ship at all, you all have equal rights. And as the more experienced officer, Danny should lead.” He paused. “A democratic leader,” he added. “One that we all agree to follow.”
“Democracy doesn’t work,” Dalton growled.
“Representative democracy does not,” Lyth returned. “Perfect and pure democracy does work, but it rarely exists. Right here, it does.”
I hid my smile as I watched Dalton squirm. Lyth was doing all the work for me. “Are you voting me in as captain, Lyth?” I already knew he had. He had called me Captain Danny last night.
“I believe that was the general thrust of what I was saying,” Lyth replied.
“I vote for Danny, too,” Juliyana said swiftly.
Dalton’s face tinged red and he drew a breath to protest…but the waitress chose that moment to come up to the table with another tray heavy with steaming plates giving off delicious scents.
Dalton had been neatly distracted. We all were. We all ate—even Lyth did, and I really wanted to know what he would do with the food and liquid he was taking in.
I was nearly through my breakfast, which was delicious. It shouldn’t be, for the food was printed and printed food never tasted quite the same as freshly prepared organics, but it did taste marvelous. Maybe it was the false sunshine and the airy notes of music drifting in the background, or the distant sound of a bustling ancient city…who knows? I just know it was one of the best meals I’ve ever had…and I had eaten chef-prepared operatic-quality meals at the clinic on New Phoenicia.
Dalton pushed his plate aside before I was finished and gripped his coffee mug in both hands. “You’re captain for now,” he told me. “I’ve been outvoted. Fine. No problems. You can be captain as long as you’re on the ship. But when we get out of this hole, we’re diving straight back into another one. I’m taking you back to your barge, lady, and dumping you on it.” He glanced at Juliyana. “Both of you.”
Juliyana put her chin on her fist. “Why did you run away from the Rangers, Dalton?’
“None of your fucking business,” he shot back.
“He was warned to take a dive, so he did,” I said.
Dalton crossed his arms. “Can we get more coffee?” he bitched, looking for the waitress.
Juliyana didn’t move. She kept her gaze on Dalton. “Answer me this, Dalton. You’ve been running forty years plus. Did you never stop to ask yourself why you’re running?”
“I’m running because I’m wanted for desertion,” he growled. His glance flickered toward me.
“I’m not the still-active Ranger here,” I pointed out.
Juliyana smiled. “I’m off-duty and on hiatus,” she replied. “So let’s be frank. The desertion is just the symptom. The reason you ran is the crux. It fits a pattern.”
“You think you know why I ran, huh?”
“I don’t believe even you do,” Juliyana replied. “You just think you do. I don’t care why you think you ran, though. The interesting thing is that just over a month after Danny resigned, you had a sudden need to disappear and never be found again. Have you considered, Dalton, that either throwing you into a brig for whatever you think you’re running from, or, as actually happened, having you run and stay wanted and off the grid, was exactly what someone wanted?”
Dalton put his coffee mug down. Slowly. He only just found the table with the bottom of it, because he was staring at Juliyana. “You’re saying Danny was forced to resign?”
He was not stupid. I gave him that.
“Danny thinks she resigned of her own free will, but what if everything was set up to push her into a place where she thought resigning was the only viable option? What if you were pushed into a place where you thought running was your only option?”
Dalton leaned forward. He was hooked. “Why?” he demanded, his voice showing a hint of strain.
“It got both you and Danny off the board,” Juliyana replied. “You were Noam’s CO. Danny was throwing her weight around, trying to exonerate Noam, to find out what really happened, because she doesn’t believe he went mad, either.”
“And what about you?” Dalton said.
“I was already off the board. I was stripped of all rank. I’ve bee
n stuck in maintenance on shit assignments in every small corner of the Empire ever since.”
Dalton winced. “Damn…” he breathed.
“Anyone who had a reason to want to learn the truth was dealt with,” Juliyana finished. “Even Darcy, Noam’s partner, has been neutralized.”
“Only, I wasn’t digging into what happened to Noam,” Dalton pointed out.
“You did know he had been reassigned to the Imperial Shield,” I said. “You’re the only person in the Rangers who knew. So they caused you to run, and changed the orders so it looked like I issued them.”
“Why you?” Dalton said. “Why not just destroy the transfer orders?”
“It would discredit me, if I ever tried to claim again that Noam was not the cause of the Drakas disaster.” I grimaced. “The orders would make it look like I was crazed with guilt for shoving him into an assignment that drove him mad.” I shrugged.
Lyth said softly, “No, the orders were changed so that Juliyana would come to find you.”
We all stared at him.
“You know that?” Juliyana said.
“I cannot demonstrate that it is true, but it is the simplest explanation. Danny had already been judged as a mother crazed with grief and forced to resign. There was no need for additional measures. The real orders were too easy to find. All they needed the false orders to do was prompt you into acting.”
“You know something about this, Lyth?” I asked warily.
Lyth shook his head. “I’ve been stuck in a junk park for nearly a century, cut off from everything. This is the first I’ve heard of Noam Andela’s actions at Drakas—although I am now up to date with the public records…such as they are.”
He had been quietly processing all the public data while we had been convincing Dalton he hadn’t run of his own free will at all.
Dalton scrubbed his face with both palms. “This doesn’t make any sense,” he said. His voice was hoarse. He didn’t like the idea that he had been manipulated any more than we did. “So I knew he’d been transferred to the Imperial Shield. So what? How is that a threat? I signed transfer orders every fucking week.”
“Do you know who he was reporting to in the Shield?” I asked. “The orders didn’t say.”
“Transfers to the Shield don’t specify CO or unit,” Dalton said. “You know that as well as I do.”
“But you do know who he was assigned to,” I replied. I was absolutely certain of it, because Dalton was the type of officer who not only asked questions he shouldn’t, he made sure he had sources who could give him the answers. He had never been a soldier who could blindly obey. He questioned everything. It was the reason he had still been a Major despite a thirty-year career in the Rangers. He knew how to work within the system…to a point.
Juliyana leaned forward eagerly. “That’s why you were made to run,” she added. “You knew too much.”
Dalton swallowed. “You’d better tell me everything.” This time, it wasn’t a demand. It was a plea.
I left the three of them in the diner, with Juliyana holding their rapt attention while she went through all the evidence and suggestive documents she had on file. Although, the only ironclad proof of any wrongdoing was the transfer orders with my chop on them, alongside the real orders.
We needed proof, something that would stand up under the blaze of public scrutiny and not look like the pair of us—or Dalton, for that matter—were delusional from our long-term denial of Noam’s fate.
I was starting to have some ideas about that. The Supreme Lythion dropping into our laps as it had would open up our options in ways I was only just starting to encompass.
My room was as I had left it…only the bed was made. Oh well, I could live with that much intrusion. I went over to my travel sack, which was still sitting upon the wheeled platform on which it had arrived last night. My pad had more data I could add to the discussion back in the diner.
“Danny,” Noam said urgently, behind me.
I whirled, my heart shooting straight up into the infarction range. “Noam…”
He moved toward me, looking as real as the bed he was skirting. He held up his hands. “Now you’re here, we really need to talk.”
“You’re not here,” I told him. “You’re just my mind blowing a gasket.” I felt sticky and prickling and panicked. But I clung to what I knew—what I thought—was happening, for it helped me anchor myself.
“You’re right. I’m not exactly here,” he said. “But this is the only way for now I can reach you. You have to listen to me, Danny. They’re coming for you.”
More doom and gloom. More scary forecasts. I shook my head. “No. No more. I’m tired of this.” I made myself straighten despite my blood pressure making me hunch in and clutch at my chest. “I want you to leave, Noam.”
“No, you don’t. Not really.” His tone was wise and gentle.
“What more do you want?” I cried. “I’m doing everything I can to figure out what happened to you. I’ve…fuck, I’ve rejuvenated, stolen money to do it, and now the family want my neck. The Rangers are after me, and not just for the money, anymore. I’m tired of being smacked around by this, Noam. Every move I make, someone tries to swipe at me. I just wanted to die in peace, and now I have another ninety years of the empire dumping bullshit on me…”
Noam just looked at me, the corner of his mouth lifted. My heart ached. I’d seen that amused, tolerant expression so many times before!
“Did you go mad?” I whispered, my eyes prickling.
“Did you really give up?” he asked.
Truth time. I’d been here before, lately. “No,” I whispered and felt the veracity of it in my gut. “No, not really.”
Noam nodded. “That’s what I thought. Ask Dalton about Michael Powell Moroder.”
What the fuck…! I stared at him, my thoughts racing with more than the sensation of doom that always accompanied his arrival.
Noam glanced over his shoulder. “Michael Powell Moroder,” he repeated, then walked away.
Through the wall.
I sank onto the bed, my pulse sounding like canon fire in my head and my whole body shaking with the adrenaline overload.
15
It wasn’t a surprise to find the galley empty, for I had lingered in my room, recovering, for longer than I had originally intended to be there.
The galley looked the same as when I had left it, which was surprisingly reassuring. I still wasn’t sure I liked the idea of a living space that changed outfits more often than me.
I looked for a concierge panel, or even the printer, which was usually next to one. I couldn’t spot either, so I raised my voice and tried anyway. “Lyth, where is Dalton?”
He said from behind me, “He’s in his room. I’ll show you the way.”
I turned and followed him back down the corridor to one of the other doors that had appeared on the inside wall of the corridor. I glanced at the lockers and drawers in the corridor itself. “Are they decorative?” I asked Lyth.
“The outer hull wall is as solid as any non-gaseous or non-liquid form,” he replied. “But they are all empty,” he added. He stopped at a door three down from mine and gestured to it.
I glanced at the doors in between. “Juliyana has one…who has the other?”
“Perhaps I do,” Lyth looked mischievous.
I rolled my eyes and raised my knuckles to the door, then shifted my hand to the keyplate and pressed it. “Dalton, it’s Danny. We need to talk.” I looked at Lyth. “If he lets me in to talk, I need you to leave us alone for a bit.”
“Concierge only,” Lyth promised. He turned and walked away.
I put my fingers against the keyplate once more. “Dalton. Gabriel. It’s important.”
After a moment, the door slid open.
I did a doubletake on this threshold, too. The room was not a room at all. It was a dock on a still lake, with mist-shrouded and tree-carpeted mountains on the other side. A cool breeze drifted off the water. Lapping sounds c
ame from beneath the planks of the dock and I could smell lake water, faint but distinct. To one side was a rickety table and a single round-back chair, beside a battered and scratched printer maw enclosed inside an object I had only seen in history videos—a refrigerator, I think they called them.
On the other end of the dock was a comfortable easy chair, facing the water and the cloud-wreathed mountains. Behind the chair was a hammock, hanging from posts on either side of the dock.
Dalton sat on the edge of the hammock, perfectly balanced. He’d had practice in sleeping in one, clearly. “I came here to think,” he complained.
“Think? Or brood?”
He scowled. “Think,” he said firmly. “And if I wanted to, why shouldn’t I brood? If you and Juliyana are right about Noam, then I’ve lost forty years plus, fucked up my health, risked dying most days of the week, and it was for nothing. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and signed the wrong set of orders.” His tone was deeply bitter.
“Not for nothing,” I said firmly. “If you were just the average officer, you’d still be signing papers somewhere, safe because you don’t ask questions when told to jump.” I paused. “You did something that goosed them, Dalton.”
He breathed heavily. A gusty sigh.
I changed subjects—just for a moment. I looked at the reflection of the crags on the surface of the lake, admiring it. “Damn, you’re really running with the full options, aren’t you?” I studied the snow-covered peaks behind the front ones. “Is this from Terra?”
“Shostavich,” he said. “My home world.”
“You’re ball-born…I didn’t know that.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.” He glared at me, waiting.
I leapt. “Michael Powell Moroder.” I watched his face carefully.
Dalton’s jaw sagged. He caught it up. “Where did you get that name?” he demanded, striding toward me.
“Then you do know it.”
“Where did you hear it?” Dalton repeated. His hands flexed as he stood before me and I had the distinct sensation he wanted to shake me to pop the answer out. “No one had that name, not in connection with this.”
Hammer and Crucible Page 15