by Baen Books
Costa nodded, then pointed at the holotank. “And there’s the final proof of your hypothesis.”
The big red mote was angling in toward Jupiter, preparing to make a shallow pass through the uppermost reaches of the gas giant’s atmosphere. Sergei frowned, shrugged. “The heavy is atmobraking. What does that prove?”
“That’s not an atmobraking trajectory, Sergei. They’re scooping up hydrogen. They’re refueling.”
Sergei nodded. “They’ve just finished a number of fuel-costly operations. They shifted in-system, boosted ‘down’ into the ecliptic, and conducted a number of high-power X-ray laser attacks. They have to refuel.” Sergei felt the corners of his mouth edge upwards. “If that assumption is correct, then the fuel cost of their weapon significantly reduces their combat endurance. From a tactical point of view, one might almost call that a weakness—”
“True enough, but first we have to find a way to tell our side that invincible Achilles has a vulnerable heel. And we have to live long enough to do it.” Costa rose, datapad in hand. “Time to take an inventory.”
Fifteen minutes later, he and Costa had finished gathering the resources relevant to their continued survival. The American ticked off the items: “Eight emergency rations kits. Two spare emergency suits. One self-contained radio communicator/beacon. One Unitechcorp ten millimeter liquid-propellant pistol with four thirty-round magazines.”
“That’s it?”
“Well, about ten liters of ready water. And,”—Costa opened up one of the hardcopy storage drawers and snaked a hand into its cluttered depths. Like a fisherman brandishing a prize catch, he pulled up a long-necked amber bottle—“And one fifth of eight-year bourbon.”
Sergei raised an eyebrow. Perhaps the next day or two wouldn’t be so boring after all.
* * *
The readout on the oxygen gauge dropped another notch: zero point one three oxygen pressure. Sergei stared at it, hating the simple device that had deposed their chronometers. Seconds had ceased to have any significance; the remaining number of breaths meant everything. Costa held out the bourbon again. Sergei took it absently.
They had spent their time as wisely as they could. They had closed off the rest of the module and pumped the oxygen from the sealed sections into the Auxiliary Command Center and a small corridor that led to a fresher and an emergency airlock.
They had aimed radio messages at Ganymede, then Callisto, then Himalia. Then they repeated the process. Again and again. For four hours.
They had recorded and printed out their hypotheses, their observations, their wildest surmises about the X-ray laser and the Arat Kur heavy. Sergei hadn’t generated that much hard-copy in years, but whereas the radiation might destroy computers, compromise magnetic media, even scramble crystal encoding, it would not affect paper. And the information had to survive, no matter what else might happen.
Then it was back to the radio: Ganymede, Callisto, Himalia. Ganymede, Callisto, Himalia . . .
The hectic activity helped the first day pass quickly. But now, only halfway through the second day, there was nothing but bourbon and talk and waiting. And staring at the oxygen gauge. Sergei rubbed his thumb along the neck of the bottle, leaned back against a bulkhead. “How long?”
Costa looked at the gauge, then at his chronometer. “Five hours, maybe six. Then, into the suits.”
“Our rescuers had better hurry, then.” Sergei swigged from the bottle, winced. He still wasn’t used to the charcoal taste that lingered behind the corn-sweetness of the bourbon. Another swig made him choke, cough.
Costa reached out for the bottle. “Careful now; don’t kill yourself.”
Sergei was only partially aware of his fingers clutching the neck of the bottle tightly, of drawing it back close to his chest. Blood throbbing in his temples, he tried to push away the realization spawned by John’s harmless, if dark, joke. Of course the two of them were almost sure to die. But one still had a significantly greater chance of surviving. One would only consume half the oxygen, could therefore last twice as long.
And at least one of them had to survive. Their reports were painstaking and thorough, but what military intelligence really needed was a flesh-and-blood witness. Sergei raised his eyes to the oxygen gauge: the indicator seemed to falter downwards toward zero point one two.
Fighting against a sense of dreamlike detachment, Sergei found himself unholstering the ten millimeter automatic that had been placed in his care. Costa’s eyes followed his motions but remained calm. The American’s waving hand signalled again for the return of the bourbon.
Sergei passed it back and heard himself say, “If only one of us consumes air, that person might live long enough to be rescued.”
Costa nodded and drank.
“John, one of us has to report, has to be fully debriefed.”
Costa nodded again, seemed ready to smile.
“I’m serious, John. We have to consider—our options. We can’t afford to fail now.”
Costa, hearing this in the middle of a swig, laugh-sputtered and then coughed; the bourbon had taken a wrong turn somewhere in the region of his esophagus. “Who are you trying to convince, Sergei? Me, or you?”
Sergei suppressed a shiver that started at the base of his spine and spread clawlike across his shoulders. He snapped the pistol’s safety back with a sweep of his thumb, focusing on the red dot that had been exposed, the bloody red drop of death that said, The safety is off; you are now prepared to kill.
Costa wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Look, I’ve never cared for”—he smiled and looked meaningfully at the pistol—“`Russian roulette.’ Particularly with an automatic. So if that’s what you’re suggesting, I’m afraid I don’t want to play.”
Sergei raised the weapon and told himself: think logically. This is not about John or you or your unexpected friendship. This is about humanity, about doing one’s duty. Above all, it is about choosing somber practicality over unwarranted optimism. And making that kind of choice, as his father had always insisted, is something Americans don’t do very well.
Costa nodded in the direction of the gun. “It only works if you squeeze the trigger, you know.”
Sergei’s brow grew very hot. “You seem very sure that I won’t kill you, John.”
Costa shrugged and cradled the bottle in his lap, stared into the amber reservoir at the bottom. “Maybe killing me is logical, but it’s not right.”
“Right or wrong, killing is essential sometimes.” The gun seemed very heavy, sagged slightly in Sergei’s hand. “You killed Akikawa.”
“Yes, just like your need for more sensor data killed Meri and Korsov. That’s what war is all about: giving orders that get people—your own people—killed. But what you’re contemplating now isn’t war. It’s murder.”
Sergei felt his jaw muscles bunch up into iron spheres. “I will do what is necessary. I am an officer.”
“You’re a human being, too. Sure, you can effectively double your survival time by killing me. But a rescue ship could be on its way right now, and that means there’s still a chance for both of us to get out of this alive. That’s why you won’t shoot me, Sergei, because, whether you admit it or not, you haven’t lost hope. And I don’t think you will.”
Sergei stared at Costa. Then he raised the pistol and squeezed the trigger, squinting against the sudden roar.
The oxygen gauge shattered into a spray of fragments, ruined and unreadable.
“At least I won’t have to see that damn gauge anymore,” Sergei grumbled. “Pass the bourbon.”
* * *
Sergei’s head hurt, not in just one spot, but all over. Damned bourbon. Sitting up, he reached for one pounding temple—but his hand thumped to a solid stop against the side of a space helmet.
Opening his eyes, and discovering that he was in an emergency suit, plunged Sergei into a tangle of confused thoughts. When did I get into this suit? Why can’t I remember putting it on? Where’s John? Is hypoxic delirium setting i
n? John will know. Find John.
Sergei staggered to his feet and scanned the control room. It was tidier than he remembered. All the hardcopy was in neat piles. Most of the screens were blank and most of the lights were off. And where was John?
Sergei clawed awkwardly at the controls on the back of his left wrist; the sudden illumination of the heads-up display blinded him momentarily. Squinting, Sergei checked the chrono: eight hours since he had blasted the oxygen gauge.
And still no sign of John. He tried the suit radio. “John?” No response. Sergei entered the dark walkway that led to the fresher and the airlock. However, the darkness there was not absolute: the narrow passage was illuminated at regular intervals by a slowly pulsing red light—the red light which indicated that the outer airlock door was open. An emergency suit was on the floor next to the inner door, folded neatly, backpack unit to one side. Sergei leaned against the airlock door, slid down into a sitting position, felt his stomach contract into a tight, frigid mass just before his mind started saying no no no.
It kept repeating that for a very long time.
* * *
Quite a while later, Sergei dragged to his feet and wandered back into the control room. John had indeed left everything in perfect order, except for a folded sheet of paper lying on what had become Sergei’s chair. It was labelled “For My Wife and My Son” and, like an oversized dot capping the “i” in “Wife,” a small silver disk rested upon the letter. Lightly inscribed with a map of the globe, it was John’s international service pin. Along the bottom were words that reproached Sergei for ever having doubted Costa: the service pin’s motto read, non nobis solum. “Not for ourselves alone.”
Sergei rubbed the disk between two fingers and then closed his hand around it tightly.
And waited.
* * *
They found Sergei forty-eight hours later. In order to buy extra time, he had set his suit’s oxygen pressure at zero point zero nine five and slipped slowly into hypoxia. He was deep in that twilight world of dreamless sleep and semi-conscious delirium when the crew of the USSF Christa McCauliffe finally docked with the Auxiliary Command Module.
Sergei woke up sometime during the trip outsystem, nauseous from the two hundred and five REM wholebody dose he had received prior to his rescue; it was going to take a while for the leukocyte booster drugs to kick in. How well the other therapies—telomere regeneration in particular—would work would only be known in the decades to come.
He spent the following weeks en route to, and then on, Titan, reputedly the most secure spot in the solar system. The Arat Kur had ignored the Saturnian regime, pushing their attack straight for Earth after utterly destroying most of the system’s available warcraft in two very one-sided battles just beltward of Jupiter. Shortly after regaining consciousness, Sergei overheard two guards muttering about an alien landing in Indonesia, but it was impossible to learn much more than that.
It was nonetheless clear that the war was not going well. Most of the faces that filled his days were grim. However, after being grilled by a panel of equally glum experts, and undergoing hypno-recall, Sergei began to note a few smiles among his debriefers. As their mood improved, they became increasingly interested in the operational limitations and fuel costs implied by the Arat Kur weapon. The questions and debriefing sessions began to blur into one long waking dream of repetition and drudgery, and Sergei lost track of the date.
Until January 25, when two messages arrived from Earth. The first message announced that the Arat Kur had been defeated in a series of sharp naval engagements in cislunar space. The second message indicated that Sergei’s information had shaped the attritional tactics that were used to overcome the Arat Kur invaders. In fact, he was due to receive a medal or two, just as soon as he got home . . .
* * *
Down below, a short stream of lights winked and was gone; the vacation communities of the Sonoma coast. The spaceplane began nosing in harder, the backswept delta wings trembling under the sudden increase in aerodynamic drag.
Sergei sighed, looked at the service pin in his hand, and affixed it to his collar. He wondered what John would say if he could see the pin. Probably wouldn’t say anything, just smile.
As the spaceplane leveled off again, the sun came up over the blue rim of San Francisco Bay. Gold and silver sleeted across the water below, streaked the horizon, painted actinic highlights on the wingtips. Sergei took his hand away from the service pin as they circled back out over the California coast: a tumbling green crest above the Pacific. At last, he was home. Home in America. And in Russia and Egypt and Uruguay and on every patch of ground that comprised the surface of the Earth—because except for lines on a map, it was now, for him, all the same place.
Sergei leaned back into his seat as the space plane descended toward the runway. Did John’s infant son have his father’s smile? Within an hour or so, Sergei would find out.
He looked out the window and watched the sun dance between the tops of the redwoods.
It felt good to be home.
Kiss From a Queen
by Jeff Provine
"The grand prize in His Majesty's tournament," bellowed the herald as he wrapped up the scroll with the king's declaration, "shall be a noble kiss from Her Highness, Queen Adela."
The queen's name echoed off the walls of the stable yard where the knights were gathered. "Adela, Adela, Adela."
Sir Arnost dropped the horseshoe he was holding. It hit his foot, but he wouldn't let the pain sully the moment. The thought of the queen's pure lips touching his ruddy skin made all of Arnost's breath slip away.
"That's pretty cheap!" Sir Odrick yelled to the herald. Other knights laughed.
The herald shrugged and walked away, his duty done.
"It's better than raising taxes again," Sir Mellam said.
"I don't mind raising taxes when the prize monies go to me." Odrick snorted and scratched the sides of his barrel-belly. "I wonder, do we have to keep the kiss, or can we tithe it to the church like Lansfrick does?"
The other knights laughed, all except Arnost.
He stood away from the group of knights, some still wearing bits of their practice armor. Most had stripped down to their shirts and lay on straw in the warm summer sun while their pages carted armor away to have dings polished out. Arnost was with the farrier, watching carefully as the man's skilled hands worked with his warhorse's hoof.
Now Arnost could not even see them. He still had visions of that day he first beheld the queen. One came upon him now, vivid and bright, as if she were standing before him. Her eyes shining like jewels, her hair of rich auburn, her soft, white shoulder . . .
Arnost winced against the vision until his sight went dark. He lost his balance and stumbled forward, finally catching himself with a hand on the warhorse's back. The horse sputtered his lips and stomped.
The farrier lunged out of the way of the enormous horse's hoof. "Watch it, oaf!"
Arnost stepped back. The world of the stable yard was clear around him again.
The farrier lay on the ground like an upturned turtle, kicking his legs to find balance on the straw and packed earth.
"Bumbling," he muttered, and then he stopped mid-curse. He looked up at Arnost through eyes filling with horror.
Arnost watched him. He was fully within his right to take up his sword.
The farrier knew it, too. He moved as if his body had gone slow. "I, I, um, sorry, milord. So sorry. I meant no—"
"It's nothing," Arnost told him. He shook his head. Did he hold the same fear in his eyes in days not too long ago?
"Oh, thank you, milord!" The farrier began to grovel. He suddenly found some speed about him and whipped himself to Arnost's feet, facedown. "Your mercy—"
"Shut up," Arnost mumbled. He left the farrier still groveling on the muck-stained straw.
His fellow knights were strewn over the stable yard. Many of them had moved into the shade now, taking sips from the bowls of water the pages brought aroun
d. Others were sprawled on makeshift beds, napping with their eyes open after a rigorous day of pounding at one another to keep their battle-skills sharp. The air was tart with the men's drying sweat.
"I don't see why the king's hosting a tournament in the first place," Sir Bonna was muttering. "Tomorrow's not a fair day."
"It's summertime, and there's no war on," Mellam told him. "An open tournament will give us a little diversion while the crops grow."
Odrick grunted. "With a prize like that, the king can have a tournament a week without worries to his coffers."
"Think many peasants will enter?" Sir Glowen asked.
"They should know better," Sir Usford replied.
Arnost sneered as he walked among them. These knights were children. They did know a hard day's work in yard as they trained, when sweat poured off a man's brow so heavily he couldn't see through the torrent. They knew pain, too. Arnost had dealt his fair share to them in mock-combats. But they didn't know what it was like to come home to an empty dinner table.
On tiptoes around the ranks of slumbering knights at a hurried step, Arnost's page raced toward him with a bowl of water that sloshed with every step.
"Care for a drink, Sir Arnost?"
Arnost gave a nod. "Yea, Roger."
Roger held up the bowl and gave a lopsided smile. The boy, now nearly a man with fuzz decorating his upper lip, was born in a castle somewhere in the dreary north. It was too minor of a landholding for Roger to be a page for a knight like Sir Lansfrick, but his father was too rich for him to be cast aside. So, he was granted to Arnost.
The bowl was half-empty from where it had spilled, and Arnost drained it dry with one sip. The water was cool and crisp, fresh from the deep well in the middle of the castle instead of the murky stuff from the sandy well nearby. Roger must have run the whole way.