The Dark Path

by Walter H Hunt

  "Up to the old man. I imagine he's got it all figured out." He looked her up and down, as if he were measuring her for a uniform—or a coffin. Then, abruptly, he turned to Ch'k'te. "That a chya?" he asked, pointing to the blade at Ch'k'te's belt, peace-bonded when they came on-station.

  "It is."

  "I've never actually seen one, but I'm pretty good with a rapier. Maybe I could get a look when you're off-duty."

  "I will be pleased to show it to you, sir." Ch'k'te placed his wings in the Posture of Resigned Deference, an ironic supplement to his comment that was not lost on Jackie, but which Chief Sabah would not understand. Sabah appeared to be pleased with the possibility of examining the chya and concluded the conversation with a nod, gesturing again toward the rear of the hold.

  ***

  After stowing their gear, they asked their way to officers' country; after taking a few wrong turns, they found then-way at last to the captain's ready-room. The hatch door was secured open; Dan McReynolds and another officer were going over a manifest, projected in midair over the desk. Both looked up when Jackie and Ch'k'te appeared in the doorway.

  "Check on the heavy freight, will you, Pyotr?" McReynolds said.

  "It's all aboard, Skip, I—"

  "Check on it," McReynolds repeated. The other man looked at him, perhaps trying to read some hidden signal Jackie couldn't understand; then he shrugged and made his way out of the ready-room. As he stepped out he gave Jackie and Ch'k'te each a good long look. There was an annoyance verging on hostility that seemed to follow him out.

  "Close the door," McReynolds said after the other had left. Ch'k'te waved at the sensor and then came to stand behind Jackie like a bodyguard.

  "I understand you wanted to see us."

  "I thought it'd be important to get a few things straight." McReynolds slid a cabinet open and pulled out a plastic squeeze-bottle. He flipped the top off and took a long pull from it and set it casually on the table. "Now that you're on my deck and part of my crew, you're under my command. You'll take my orders or you'll get off at the next stop. Understood?"

  "It goes without saying."

  "You're sure about this, Jay? It'll take some doing after your previous station. No white-glove dress uniforms here."

  "Did you call me here to tell me about life in the commercial service? I know what to expect."

  "Do you." He took another pull on the bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Do you really.

  "In order to find you and your caddy a spot on the roster, I had to give two good crew members their walking papers. Now, to be fair, I found them berths on other ships with S'reth's help, but it's a hell of a thing to do. They got big enough bonuses that they'll keep their mouths shut, but they had a lot of friends aboard this tub.

  "See, in the civilian world, you don't just get an officer exam or a weekly inspection. You get tested every day, every shift. You screw up once—just once—and people will be on your ass, and hard. I can't shield you if that happens, no matter how important this quest is."

  "Are you trying to scare me?"

  "You're determined to tough this out, aren't you? Machismo was always a strength with you." He tensed and Jackie almost laughed out loud; he looked as if he were expecting her to deck him again. She pushed her annoyance back, knowing he was trying to test her temper.

  "Are you trying to scare me?" she repeated.

  "No, I'm not. I'm trying to warn you. Watch yourself. You're going to be under everyone's eyes—mine, the department chiefs', your bunkmates', the people you eat with, everyone. I get paid whether you get to Crossover or not, but, as an old friend of yours and of S'reth's, I'd rather you got there."

  "I guess I should say 'thank you.' "

  "Don't strain yourself." He looked to be on the verge of an angry comment, but this time he seemed to hold himself back. "Look. I guess I'm expecting to have to go out of my way for you—for both of you. If I don't, it's just as well. Much as it'd feed my ego to have to help you through this entire trip, it will be better for both of you if we don't even cross paths before you get off.

  "I guess that's it. Get settled in and get to work. Dismissed." He tossed them a salute that in the Imperial Navy would've been sloppy; here, it seemed like the height of formality. With out looking at them again, he turned back to examination of the manifest.

  ***

  There are a thousand details to be attended to before a merchant vessel can depart from a port. Money matters—port fees, contract settlements and acceptance and transfer of goods—are the responsibility of the cargo crew. On a small merchantman, the cargo crew is nearly everyone.

  Most travelers never get to see what goes on dockside. It was an eye-opening experience for Jackie; instead of supervising from the bridge or the station, she was sweating out a deadline working directly under the Sultan, trying to get everything loaded and stowed as quickly as possible. Dock access fees are charged by the hour on-station; for ships like the Fair Damsel, a few hours can mean the difference between profit and loss. By the time the Damsel cast off, Jackie and Ch'k'te were exhausted and ravenous like everyone else. They went off-duty and found their way to the galley amidships; they found themselves a quiet corner of the commissary to eat their first meal aboard the merchantman.

  Their isolation didn't last long. Two crewmembers, one male and one female, dressed in worn uniform jumpers, sat down next to them so suddenly that Jackie saw—and sensed—Ch'k'te's claws extend fractionally out of their sheaths.

  "You're Kearny, aren't you?" the man asked Jackie. He'd sat down beside her while the woman had taken a seat directly opposite, next to Ch'k'te. She was studiously spreading butter on a roll, watching her companion from the corner of her eye.

  "Jackie Kearny."

  "Where do you hail from, Jackie Kearny?" he asked, half turning toward her, letting his arm dangle over the back of his seat. Jackie tried not to look back at it. She set her tableware down in front of her carefully, intentionally trying to avoid the precision of an Academy cadet.

  "Dieron."

  "Long way from home. But don't you worry; we're one big family here, all good friends."

  "Glad to hear it."

  "I'm Raymond Li. We'll be working together, looks like, doing route planning across the line."

  "You're in Navigation Section."

  "I am Navigation Section." He laid his hands out on the table, letting his draped arm brush her arm for a moment as it went by. "I'm the chief navigator of this tub and part owner. The Old Man and I go way back."

  Not as far back as I go, she thought. She didn't say it, though, instead looking at their other table companion. "You in navigation, too?"

  "Engineering," she replied. "Sonja Torrijos."

  Her stomach jumped; it must have shown in her face.

  "You know the name?"

  "I've heard it before—"

  "Great-granduncle Sergei, I suppose. Jesus Christ, Ray, it's like I told you: I can't go anyplace without someone making the connection. Well, believe me, Kearny, there's no love lost between me and Uncle Sergei. He's not even human anymore, far as I can tell; he's all but turned into a zor, 'cept for growing wings."

  "This is a bad thing," Ch'k'te said softly, without looking up.

  "Humans are humans, zor are zor. I don't see any sense in mixing the two."

  "Clearly," Ch'k'te said quietly, as if tasting every word be fore he let it pass, "our captain has chosen a somewhat different course."

  "Didn't mean it that way," Sonja answered, turning on him. Raymond Li smiled and rolled his eyes as if he'd heard this before. "You do your job, you can be a human, a zor, a rashk or a blue-horned, seven-tailed Arcturian ape for all I care. I got nothing against zor personally."

  "Just as a race."

  "I got nothing against them as a race, either! Just like your kind to twist my words. I swear, every time I try to talk to one of you I get into this kind of argument. I don't want to talk about it, you read?"

  "I understand
completely," Ch'k'te said, arranging his wings as best he could in the Posture of Postponed Anger. Jackie tried her best not to notice.

  "Don't mind her, friend zor," Raymond interjected. "She's got a chip on her shoulder the size of Adrianople Starbase. Nothing like famous kin to give you an attitude problem."

  "Among my people," Ch'k'te replied, "the Nest, sept and clan form such a large extended family that everyone has a famous blood relative."

  "What are you, the High Lord's cousin?"

  Ch'k'te's wings assumed the Cloak of Affirmation. "I am from a younger and less distinguished clan," he answered. "I do not have that honor." His posture said, Of course! I am indeed a HeYen. Jackie quickly looked around the commissary to see if anyone noticed and then gave Ch'k'te a sharp glance. He returned a liquid gaze to her, his annoyance and anger thinly veiled.

  "You okay, Kearny?"

  We got this far, Jackie thought furiously. Don't let your damn zor pride get in our way now!

  It does not matter, she heard back from within her head: a cool presence—Th'an'ya. You are being watched. No one has noticed le Ch'k'te's indiscretion.

  "Kearny." She felt a hand, tentative, tugging on her coveralls blouse. "Kearny, you feeling all right?"

  She snapped back to the here-and-now. "I'm . . . fine. A little tired, I'm a little out of shape, I guess, and the Sultan wears me out."

  "He does that to everyone." The conversation topic changed, as the excuse and the brief pause seemed to satisfy her new crewmates.

  ***

  Later, lying on her bunk, she spoke again to Th'an'ya. Tell me again what you told me before, she thought, her eyes shut. About how we're being watched.

  You have a dangerous enemy on board. He knows what you are, but it will be difficult for him to confront you. Who is he? What does he look like? Who—So many questions. Th'an'ya's "voice" betrayed something like amusement; it reminded Jackie of a tinkling, chiming bell. I have no ability to perceive him as you do. I see him in a different way; this makes me unable to respond to these questions.

  How do you see him, then?

  An image began to form in her mind, as if it were being replayed inside her eyelids. A zor, handsome with a noble bearing, a . . . not a chya, but something terribly unlike it. He stood before her in her mind's eye, not looking at her, but examining his talons in an almost human gesture.

  Shrnu'u HeGa'u. He of the Dancing Blade.

  She sat bolt upright in her bunk, her eyes open; she felt wings pull close around her; her hand reached for a chya that wasn't there. Her head collided with the formed plastic of the bunk above and the pain drove her flat again. She must have said something, because she felt, rather than saw, someone beside her.

  "You all right?"

  For just an instant she felt the impulse to attack the figure crouched beside her bunk, and then she made out a vaguely familiar face in the dim light.

  "Sorry," she said to her bunkmate, Karla Bazadeh, a middle-aged cargo hand she'd barely greeted before they cleared port. "Nightmare," she managed to add.

  "Need something from the dispensary?"

  "No." She rubbed the top of her head, which was already developing a bump. "No, thanks. I'll be okay."

  Grumbling, Karla climbed back into the bed above. Jackie rubbed her head and worked on breathing and getting her heart-rate back to normal. After several minutes, she heard regular breathing above her and closed her eyes again to speak with Th'an'ya.

  That was a dirty trick.

  I fail to understand your meaning, se Jackie.

  I had to fight that—I had to fight him. In the Dsen'yen'ch'a, my Dsen'yen'ch'a. He scared the shit out of me. He almost killed me, when I had no way of even understanding the stakes. How am I going to fight him now? I don't even have a chya.

  He does not have his e'chya. You are on equal terms.

  He has more weapons than I do.

  Are you sure?

  You know damn well I'm not sure of anything. What you're telling me is that the Deceiver has placed one of his best agents, who threw himself—or an image of himself—off a cliff—or an image of a cliff—the last time we met. Now he's on board this ship, but doesn't look like a zor, and is looking to kill Qu'u.

  Who does not look like Qu'u.

  But you say that he knows what I look like.

  There is no guarantee of that. His perception of you may well have been different than how you actually seem. He seeks your hsi, se Jackie, and will only recognize you by it.

  Hard to disguise that.

  Impossible, se Jackie.

  Sometime later she drifted into sleep. Little of her dreams remained with her afterward, except for an impression of a steep set of stairs carved into a mountainside; she was climbing then endlessly, away from some unknown horror below and toward some hidden confrontation at the top.

  ***

  In order to make a faster-than-light jump, a vessel must navigate out of the gravity-well of a solar system. Some planetary systems are inherently hazardous; for mercantile vessels that lack the sophisticated equipment of military ones, a local pilot comes on board to handle the transit to the jump point.

  Cle'eru was such a system. There were two belts of asteroids roughly in the plane of the system's ecliptic, along with a high percentage of comets and meteoric debris. For merchant vessels this made local pilots necessary, and the Fair Damsel engaged one before clearing dock.

  Jackie was on the bridge when the pilot came on-duty. He was a zor who walked with a slight limp and whose wings didn't settle perfectly over his shoulders. He gave his name as K'ke'en—"Twisted"—a use-name, a joke that was lost on everyone else; as a human navigator's mate, it would have been out of place for her to notice.

  It wasn't hard, though, to read the contempt of the bridge crew. As Pyotr Ngo, the Fair Damsel's first pilot, vacated the command chair to make room for K'ke'en, Jackie could see the eyes of everyone on the bridge on the zor. Their resentment, or disgust, or basic racial hatred was clear. Whatever it was, they made no secret of it. She wondered to herself how Ch'k'te was making out.

  For K'ke'en's part, he handled it professionally, as he must have been accustomed both to the attitudes of humans (especially on Cle'eru!) and of his fellow zor, who might have looked down on his deformity. It was, after all, more than a physical handicap: it was a speech impediment. The crew might well have disliked taking orders from a zor, particularly a crippled one; but they responded promptly as he gave them. He took advantage of the ship's handling characteristics more and more as he acquired the "feel" of the Damsel.

  Jackie plotted each step of K'ke'en's course on the helm board. He kept the Damsel in the plane of the solar system; but this required numerous course corrections to avoid obstacles, the motion of which she could only guess at. Still, it seemed that K'ke'en's path was unusually complex . . .

  Suddenly, the path as plotted seemed to jump out at her, a familiar shape—or rather a symbol: a zor ideogram. From some where in her mind—from Th'an'ya, no doubt—she was able to identify the symbol: Sha'GaHe'en, the Danger of Hidden Evil.

  As she stood over the board, realization flooding over her, she felt rooted to the spot. She had the feeling of being watched but had to exert all of her will to avoid meeting the zor pilot's gaze. Her first reaction was to think, C'mon, tell me something I don't already know.

  K'ke'en had gone to astonishing lengths to convey this message, but it occurred to her that he must have had his reasons: hostiles were clearly paying attention, and might notice any more overt means; also, it was possible that K'ke'en wasn't sure to whom he was sending the message and was hoping the intended recipient was listening. Even if he knew, he might fear that he would give away her identity to anyone else.

  But who was K'ke'en, to send this message to her?

  And who was she, really, to be receiving it?

  She never got the answer to those questions. The Fair Damsel rendezvoused with the jump-point station near the edge of Cle'eru System; K'ke'en took his
credit chip and disembarked, with no further messages.

  ***

  The Damsel jumped. From the outside, if there had been any one to watch, it would have looked as if the ship were under water, her appearance rippling as if a pebble had been dropped in that water sending out echoes of its passage. The water was space-time, making its complaint as the pebble—the surge of energy produced by matter and antimatter annihilating each other in the crystalline trap of the ship's FTL drive—dropped through it. The water shifted, and from the outside, it would seem that the image of the ship shifted with it . . . and was gone, leaving a soundless echo in its wake.

  Transit time to Crossover was about six days. This wasn't a movable feast; in fact, since the very nature of the FTL space in which the ship traveled did not admit the passage of light, it was just as well that the dynamics of jump kept the Damsel traveling at a constant speed relative to the real universe even though it didn't pass through it. Distance traveled was a function of direction and time . . . a novel variation on the three components. It would be six days, two hours, twelve minutes and nineteen seconds in the darkness.

  ***

  Navigation Section doesn't have much to do in jump, but aboard a merchantman there are always things to keep crew busy. Just as on dockside, Jackie found herself assigned to the Sultan, working on cargo inventory. She, Ray Li and Karla Bazadeh, her bunkmate, were a three-person team. It was boring work, and more than once as she unpacked and repacked a cargo canister, she felt her mind casting back to Cicero, or Dieron, or anywhere but aboard the Fair Damsel halfway between Cle'eru and Crossover.

  The cargo bay had been full of echoes and suddenly she realized that it was silent. She had been engrossed in some irrelevant task, but the quiet made her listen. Even the sounds of Ray and Karla doing the same tasks had somehow faded to soundlessness.

  "Ray?" She stood up, feeling strained muscles complain. She set her comp and stylus down on a canister. "Karla?"

  Qu'u.

  The word boomed around the empty walls. "Ray?" she said again, stepping a few meters out from the loose pile of crates and canisters. She felt her body crouch slightly, assuming a fighting stance.