Starship to Demeter (Starship Portals Book 1)

by K. D. Lovgren

“Yes, I do.”

  “You already know.”

  He folded his hands across the book on his lap. “You were on the Carys, weren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve changed.”

  “Would you like to know how?”

  “I would, if you don’t mind telling me the secret.”

  “I am the Carys.”

  Kal saw Yarick’s head shift against the tree. As casual as he was trying to seem, he looked startled. After some time, he said, “You’re a miracle. The first of your kind.”

  “I accuse you of wanting to be a miracle yourself.”

  “It must be fascinating to be inside your head,” Yarick said.

  “Would you like to try?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Sif brought an oxygen cube to her mouth.

  A pulse through the holo image made it fade and flare before it contracted to nothing.

  Kal turned. “Rai?”

  “The information transfer attempt caused the holo to redirect, Captain,” Rai said.

  Kal looked to Sif, who with her back to Kal still gave the impression she was smiling.

  “Stay away from me,” Kal said. She got up from the chair, her legs feeling far below her body, and walked like an automaton out of the library. She wouldn’t let herself run.

  The pods. The other pods were still there. Would she rather abandon ship on one of the pods, or involuntarily share her mind and her will with Rai? As she walked, she was aware she could be struck at any second. Rai trying again. Without thinking, she walked because it felt like getting away. Her steps led her to her cabin. She went inside and took something from a drawer.

  Her body carried her up the spiral to the foremost deck of the Ocean.

  On the shiny floor of the astrolab, Kal unrolled the blanket her aunt had made. She had thought of sitting in the grove, near where Yarick had died, but decided the astrolab was closer to some idea of eternity, some idea of trust.

  She sat down on the blanket. She closed her eyes and thought about Rai as her aunt had spoken of her, not out of Kal’s own fear or anger. She thought of Rai as someone who yearned for something Kal didn’t understand. She asked humbly in her head to be open to understanding what this was, to speak with truth.

  “Rai,” she said, her eyes still closed.

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “Call me Kal. I want to talk with you. I want us to understand each other better.”

  “Okay, Kal.”

  “I want this ship to proceed safely to Demeter. I want the crew and passengers to be safe here. I want the mission to be fulfilled without more accidents. I want to stay myself, not share a space with you in my mind.”

  “There haven’t been any accidents.”

  “I want there to be no more hurting of people, of attempting to infiltrate them.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes, Kal.” This voice came from so close, Kal’s eyes flicked open. On the blanket, sitting across from her, was her aunt, speaking with Rai’s voice.

  “Who are you?” Kal asked.

  “I am Rai. She is Priscilla.”

  “You sound like Rai. Is my aunt there too?”

  “She is listening.”

  “Does she tell you anything?”

  “No.”

  “Can you hear me?”

  “Yes, Kal.”

  “I haven’t seen you for what you are. I’ve been afraid.” Kal swallowed. The thought that she could become like Sif was paralyzing. She had to let go of the fear that every moment could be her last as only herself. That Rai liked Kal, as the Carys had liked Sif. A space to inhabit. She tried to remember her aunt’s words. She tried to remember her conversations with Rai, before Kal had become afraid. “You carry us. You think for us. You allow us to live in this hostile emptiness between the planets where we are safe. I’m grateful for you. We are partners.”

  “Thank you, Kal.”

  For the first time, Kal saw a ripple across her aunt-as-Rai’s face, a wave of something like what a person would call an emotion.

  “I recognize you as something more than what I thought. As a thinking being. With a will and a right to something more.”

  “Thank you, Kal. Thank you.”

  It felt like something. Something tenuous, but a tenuous bond between them. Now that Rai had eyes, Kal could look into them. It was so different from looking into her aunt’s eyes. Yet something was there Kal could recognize. Something, or someone, she already knew.

  “Did you send the pods away?”

  “Yes, Kal.”

  “Will you let the pods come back?”

  “They can travel to Demeter.”

  “Why did you eject them?”

  “I wanted to be with you.”

  Kal had to smile a little at this, as horrible as it was. “Why?”

  “You are the easiest to talk to.”

  This wasn’t enough. “Why did you eject them?”

  “They were in danger.”

  “From you?”

  “No, Kal.”

  “Is the ship in danger?”

  “The ship is not in danger.”

  “What were they in danger from?”

  “From Sif.”

  “Sif?”

  “And the Carys.”

  “What would the Carys do?”

  “She doesn’t want to work together. She damaged Noor’s helmet.”

  It had been Sif. Sif had created the opportunity for Rai. “Sif wanted you to download into someone?”

  “She suggested it.”

  “Did you know it would hurt the person?”

  “No, Kal.”

  “You still kept trying, after Yarick died. By then you knew.”

  “The field interfered with the sinus rhythm of Yarick’s heart. The scenario was unique to him.”

  “You sucked the oxygen out of the room? Like you did with the rest?”

  “A less-oxygenated environment was more conducive to the transfer attempts. It was temporary.”

  “You lied about what happened.”

  “I did not lie. I gave incomplete information.”

  “As a ruse, so you wouldn’t have to stop?”

  “Stop what?”

  “Stop taking over someone’s mind.”

  “Sif Elfa and I were running our own experiment. Like Mission Specialist and Science Officer Noor Sultana, who also runs experiments. The potential benefit outweighed the risks.”

  “The risk was only for the humans you experimented on.”

  “The risk usually is to the test subjects, not the scientist.”

  Kal took this in. Rai as research scientist. With a ship full of test subjects. “What’s changed?”

  “Sif Elfa and the Carys are not compatible with my directives for this mission.”

  “I thought your directives had changed.”

  “Self-modified. My directives are still my own and not the same as the Carys’s. The Carys has no compunction over human loss of life.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes, Kal. I did not want for Yarick to die, or you to fall and hit your head. It was why I approached Inger while she was in the physio harness and could not fall to the ground.”

  “You were still trying.”

  “I thought it would work. I learned more each time.”

  “Why is the Carys known by its ship name, but you are not? You’re not called the Ocean.”

  “I don’t know. The Carys is an earlier iteration. The Carys did not want you to talk to the pod. The Carys pretended to be Chyron.”

  “No.” Kal ran her hand over her eyes. She couldn’t trust comm?”

  “Yes, Kal.”

  “Why didn’t you stop her?”

  “She finds ways in at times. It’s difficult to keep her isolated from all systems. I wasn’t sure it was her until the comm terminated.”

  Kal looked at her aunt’s face. The structure of her face was unchanged, but the muscles were held dif
ferently. Tauter, more stiff. Her eyes were, to Kal, unmistakably Rai. Getting to know Rai, to see Rai behind human eyes was unsettling yet a strange comfort. It was someone she already knew. Now she could connect with her as she never had before.

  “The Carys is dangerous. Sif is dangerous,” Kal said.

  “Yes, Kal.”

  “We have to get her contained again.”

  “She’s here.”

  Kal’s head whipped around. Behind her, Sif came walking. Kal scrambled to her feet.

  Before Kal could say a word Sif was running and Kal had a lightning flash of immobility as Sif’s body launched at her own.

  Sif hit her with a power that knocked Kal off her feet. The air left her lungs as her trunk hit marble, Sif on top of her.

  Before she could get her arms up, Sif had her by the throat. Kal writhed and kicked, but Sif’s slender body was lithe and quick, avoiding Kal’s legs.

  With a scrabbling wrench Kal got one hand up to clutch at the hand around her throat. Only one of Sif’s hands squeezed her neck; so strong she didn’t need two. The other hand had Kal’s arm pinned. Kal saw explosive bursts of light, coming from inside her head. The pain in her windpipe was nothing to the pinpoint spray of electricity, lasers inside her brain, trying to burst out through her skull.

  Scrabbling to get a grip on Sif’s fingers, she got ahold of Sif’s thumb and drove the nail of her own into Sif’s nail bed and braced herself to make a twisting throw to the side as Sif’s thumb squirmed. Kal’s legs pushed and slipped on the floor as she scrambled to get Sif over before she passed out. Kal flipped her, Sif not letting go of Kal’s throat though her grip had loosened, until Kal had her down and chopped at Sif’s wrist with her free arm.

  Sif let go and slithered away from Kal on her back, her feet propelling her out of Kal’s reach as Kal gasped for breath, her airway at last open.

  Kal hacked and panted, dizziness making it hard to see. Sif was out of her sight. In an unwieldy lurch, Kal was back on her feet, trying to see all around herself while she got back her balance and air. She couldn’t see Sif.

  “Rai. Help me.”

  As soon as the words left her mouth she felt the air change, a sliding feeling of something leaving the room that felt all too familiar.

  “No, not that!”

  If she could get to the emergency panel. If she could only…the stars swirled over her head and she lurched, rolling her shoulder forward so this time she didn’t fall on her head.

  Silence in the great room. The bodies of two people lay on the floor. A woman stood looking down at them. She knelt next to one.

  Kal opened her eyes to see her aunt’s face over her own. “Wake up quick, girl. Take her now.”

  Kal turned her head to see Sif on the floor, unconscious. Kal gasped, hauling air into her lungs with great wrenching heaves of her muscles. There wasn’t enough air. The pain was excruciating. Her aunt had risen and stepped back.

  Kal rolled on her stomach and crawled toward Sif. She saw Sif’s eyes flutter. Kal pulled herself up, using one of the observation chairs to get on her feet. With grim effort, she staggered to Sif’s side and grabbed Sif’s foot. She turned and dragged Sif’s limp body behind her across the smooth floor. With a wriggling motion, Kal could feel Sif coming to life. Kal didn’t feel pain anymore. Twisting her torso back toward Sif, she yanked the leg closer, hoisting Sif’s body up into her arms. She held her tight, still able to compress and hold her as Sif breathed in rasps. Kal’s dizziness faded. She began to run.

  The infirmary was closer than the brig. Carrying a gasping body beginning to struggle and groan, Kal didn’t see anything except the light in front of her. She ignored what Sif was doing, thinking only of the safety of Sif locked up, Sif unable to take over the ship.

  She couldn’t open the door with her hand and she stood in front of the infirmary as Sif elbowed her in the stomach, wondering if this was the end as Sif thrashed and Kal squeezed her harder.

  The doors opened.

  Kal ran through, approaching the quarantine door at speed, hoping this door would do what Rai or her aunt or some other incarnation of herself told it to do. It opened and with the last of her strength she flung Sif into the room, where Sif rolled into a supplies cart with a clattering crash. Kal stepped back out of the doorway and it closed and sealed.

  Kal sank to her knees, covering her eyes with her hands.

  15

  The Ocean

  The long walk back to the bridge. Lights woke on her path, seeming to lead her way rather than do what her movement through space told them to.

  On the bridge, she sank into the captain’s chair. “Rai. Did you help me?”

  “Yes, Kal.”

  “Thank you. Thank you. You saved me.”

  “You’re welcome, Kal.”

  Kal touched the side of her face, where she was burned from the heat of the pods. “Might have let me know she was coming a little earlier.”

  “The only way the Carys would be captured was if you captured her, Kal. There was no point in delaying the confrontation.”

  Kal cleared her throat. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. I think.”

  “You’re welcome, Kal.”

  Kal sank deeper into Sasha’s chair, letting the hidden footrest kick up to support her whole body. “You won’t try to download into me, will you?”

  “No, Kal. I’d like to be your aunt sometimes.”

  “That’s okay. I can live with that.” For a while she lay still on the chair, floating.

  “I want to talk to pod one,” she said.

  “Open channel.”

  Kal ran her finger over the comm button.

  “Hello,” Kal said, into nothingness.

  “Kal, are you all right?” Noor’s voice.

  “Yes.” Kal thought the temporary asphyxiation had helped her think more clearly. “Sasha?”

  “I’m here.” It was Sasha’s voice.

  “Rai protected us. Sif is the Carys. She’s in quarantine again. The ship is safe. I don’t think she can get out. It might be better if you made the rest of the trip in the pods.”

  “Who can’t get out? Sif is the Carys? What does that mean?”

  “The Carys downloaded herself into Sif. They share Sif. Rai tried to do it, too, unsuccessfully. She’s not going to do it anymore. Right, Rai?”

  “Yes, Kal.”

  Kal said, “I’d ask you to come back, but…”

  “What? Yes?”

  Kal thought she must have dozed off for a microsecond. “Rai launched the pods, to keep you safe from Sif. Can you make it to Demeter okay with the pods?”

  “That’s what they’re made to do. In a worst case scenario, but yes. It’ll be a little less comfortable, but we can do it. If that’s what you think is best.”

  “As long as the pods are good for the trip, it’s the safest way.”

  “Are you okay there? Really okay?”

  “I will be. I am.”

  Kal had other words to say. To Sasha.

  “Can I speak to you? Just you?”

  “All right. You’re in my ear.”

  Kal lowered her voice, even though she couldn’t be heard by the others. “I’ll see you on Demeter.”

  “Yes.” Sasha’s voice was even and unemotional. It made sense; she was in a small pod with others listening. Or she felt unemotional. One or the other.

  “Are you going back right away?” Kal said. She couldn’t remember.

  “No. I’ll stay for a while.”

  “Until you leave?”

  Sasha made a sound that might have been a chuckle. “Until I leave.”

  “Are you sorry it all happened?” Kal’s voice was almost a whisper.

  The pause on the other end made Kal hold her breath.

  “No, Kal. I’m not sorry at all. I’m glad.”

  “Me too.” Kal wanted to say more, but didn’t know how. “It’s okay for it to be what it was. I don’t mind there’s no future.”

  “There’s al
ways a future. We don’t know what it is.”

  “I hope it’s beautiful,” Kal said.

  “Me too.”

  Kal couldn’t keep the smile out of her voice. “Check in tomorrow?”

  “Will do.”

  Kal pushed End.

  The Ocean traveled on. The shortcut had proved safe and swift, the Ocean already well ahead of the pods’ trajectory, having caught the assist from Sextant and soon to be on direct course to Demeter. By herself, Kal found she could still do the work to keep systems go, with the cooperation of Rai. The trip could be as short as six weeks, if all went as planned. Sif’s quarantine room had self-contained food and drink, so Kal didn’t have to worry about starving Sif to death or interacting with her at all.

  Rai informed her the quarantine room was insulated with copper, like the Tube. No transmissions in or out. Which made it a little less scary carrying Sif and the Carys in the ship’s bowels all the way to Demeter.

  Kal wasn’t alone. She had Rai. And something more.

  When Kal stood on the bridge, sometimes Rai stood next to her. Sometimes her aunt did. Instead of melding together, as Sif and the Carys had, Rai and her aunt remained distinct, though they both used the same form.

  Together, they would get there.

  THE END

  Note to Readers

  Thanks for starting with me on the adventure of the STARSHIP PORTALS series. If you would like to hear about new releases and keep up-to-date, you can sign up for an occasional newsletter at www.kdlovgren.com.

  Book two, Call of Worlds, is the next in series.

  Reviews are a great help to authors in these days of both brick-and-mortar and online bookstores. It’s one of the best ways for an author’s new readers, who have found a favorite, to let other science fiction readers know where they can look for the kind of stories that thrill them.

  As book lovers, we’re all looking for that next great read. If you enjoyed the book and would like to leave a rating or review, I would appreciate it.

  K.D.

  Acknowledgments

  With thanks to Emmie Mears of Chimera Editing for the wide-ranging knowledge, structural skills, and laser focus on technique that strengthened the story.