Xai pulled herself over to the stasis pod and stared down at the face of the man lying within it. By now the electromagnetic dampers that kept his brain in stasis would have been deactivated. The nano-hemoglobins would have drained from his system. The re-awakening drugs would have been administered. He was probably having rather vivid dreams—reawakening dreams, they called them. There was a famous Rydian painter, Xai recalled, who had used stasis as inspiration for his work. Xai had seen one of his pieces—a poly-dimensional fabric of colors, songs and smells. It had all been quite odd, and Xai had felt strangely relieved to disengage from it, as if she had gotten closer to the man than was appropriate.
There were two basic forms of suspended animation—hypersleep and stasis. Hypersleep had been developed first, at the beginning of space travel. It was essentially the freezing of the human body. People could be revived thousands of years after they had first been frozen. It wasn’t pleasant, but it was very effective and—especially important to certain groups—relatively cheap.
The basic problem with hypersleep was that it tended to shave anything from three to five years off the average life span of the people who used it. Something about stopping the body and then restarting it at a later date had negative physiological consequences. This wasn’t much of a problem if one was only going to go into hypersleep once, but for frequent travellers it just wasn’t viable.
Stasis was invented to compensate for that defect. Instead of stopping the functioning of the body, it merely slowed it down as much as possible.
At first, stasis pods were only effective for several hours—days at most. Then they came up with nano-hemoglobins. Nano-hemoglobins converted the carbon monoxide in the blood stream back into oxygen, feeding it to the cells and keeping them alive. The pod also provided nutrients—forty years worth, according to the advertisements.
These days, one chose whichever option was more appropriate for one’s position and goals. Stasis was more expensive than hypersleep, but if you had to do it often, it was the only way to go.
Xai watched the man’s eyes move behind his eyelids. She wondered what he was dreaming about. The T’lasians were an old space-faring race, exiles from one of the early Fleet colonies, a stubborn, independent people who had refused to live under military rule. Stories said they had taken all their ships over to the Rydian Empire, becoming cargo haulers for hire. The stories also said that T’lasian mothers would rather die than let their children be born on a planet, and that the only law that T’lasians followed was Space Code. Xai knew that according to Prime Etiquette it was considered impolite to stare at T’lasians. Marcus had told her this was because all the debts and obligations of a T’lasian were marked on his face, so that staring at a T’lasian was rather like examining his credit rating. But right after that he’d told her all Messinians had to kill one of their cousins before they were considered warriors, so Xai wasn’t sure she should believe it.
She missed him suddenly, with a deep, profound sense of loss. She wondered how he was. She couldn’t stop hoping he had survived, somehow, stowing away on some ship, escaping capture in some inventive manner. He was ingenious enough to have survived. Somehow, he must have.
The diagnostics kit beeped. The ambient oxygen level was at eighteen percent and climbing. The air filters should already be working. At twenty-one percent the system would automatically shut off and the water filtration process would begin. Her reserves would be substantially lower. But at least she wouldn’t have to wear the helmet.
The man in the stasis pod had about ten minutes left before he woke up. At this point he didn’t need to be sealed in any longer. Xai reached over and undid the magnetic clasps. The lid of the stasis pod drifted up gently, gleaming, reflecting the light of the stars shining through the great gash in the cargo’s hull.
Xai activated the force field at the Tellorian’s hatch. It flickered twice and burst into being with a static hum. Xai let out a relieved breath and opened the hatch. She turned the lid over, so that the concave side was facing up.
The ambient oxygen level was now at the requisite twenty-one percent. The oxygenation system had automatically shut down. Carefully, she unfastened the sulphuric acid container from the water reserves and put it in the middle of the overturned stasis pod lid. Then she pushed the lid through the force field and got out of the ship. When her feet were on the cargo bay floor she marched the lid until she was about twenty meters away from the Tellorian. She moored it there, in the middle of the empty cargo bay—the inverted lid of an old-fashioned stasis pod holding a container of one of the most toxic substances known to man. With a small shudder, Xai went back to the ship.
The man was awake when she pulled herself back into the Tellorian, his long, gaunt body floating about a half-meter over the bed of the stasis pod. Two very green eyes watched her over a bushy black beard.
Xai fumbled with her helmet. It took about a minute for her fingers to find the clasp.
“Prolonged Exposure Suit being deactivated,” the voice said.
Then she had the helmet off and was breathing real, thick, smelly, moving air for the first time in a day and a half, taking deep gulps of it, relishing all the while the unencumbered view.
The man waited, watching her.
Xai let her helmet float beside her. “Hello,” she tried finally, in Basic.
The man nodded, his expression serious. He was obviously waiting for something.
Xai looked around the interior of the ship, hunting for some sort of cue.
“Protocol,” the man suggested in Basic. His voice was very weak.
Xai smiled blankly and glanced around the ship again, trying not to look like a complete idiot.
“Space Code,” he said finally. “Protocol for stasis survivors.” Speaking was obviously causing him pain.
Xai blinked, took a deep breath, and admitted the truth. “I don’t know Space Code,” she told him. “I ended up out here sort of by accident.”
The man shut his eyes and was very still for a moment or two. Finally, after licking his lips, he opened his eyes once more. “On the left side of the pod,” he whispered, “is a portal. Inside it is an injection packet. Get it out.”
Xai fumbled at the portal and extracted the packet of injections.
“Give them to me,” he whispered. He sounded very bad, now.
“All five?” Xai asked nervously.
The man nodded tiredly.
Xai quickly unfastened her gloves and let them hang in the air beside her helmet. Fingers free in the cold air, she prepared the first injection.
Xai looked at him when the injection was ready. His eyes were closed. He seemed in pain. Xai lifted the applicator, put the shot-gun to his neck, and depressed the trigger. His whole body began to quiver, wracked with spasms. Xai waited nervously for the shaking to subside. Finally, he opened his eyes again. They looked at each other for a moment, silent. His eyes were clearer now, less clouded with pain.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Xai,” she told him. His eyes were a very deep green. Xai found his gaze unnerving and looked away.
“I beg your pardon,” he said. He had a very warm voice, very kind. “Are you Messinian?”
“Yes,” Xai answered.
“I did not mean to be rude. I thought I was dealing with a Rydian. I know of very few Messinians in Space.”
Xai glanced up. “Rydians look like me?” she asked, surprised.
“Some do,” he replied, his voice rough.
Xai built the second injection, put the shot to his neck, and depressed the trigger. He jerked slightly.
“I am Joaquim Salazar Syng. What is the date?”
Xai took a deep breath and told him. “281.233 Prima time.”
Joaquim gave her a blank look, mentally calculating the years. Xai waited. “Thirty-five years?” he said finally, incredulously.
Xai nodded and prepared the third shot. He didn’t even seem to notice.
“I was in stasis f
or thirty-five years?” he repeated. His voice was cleaner now, the husky, hurt tone replaced by a clear tenor.
“Yes.”
“But that’s…” he said, stunned. “That’s…“
Xai put the third shot up to his neck.
“What about the others?” he asked.
Xai shook her head and depressed the trigger. He shut his eyes for a moment, his expression pained.
“All of them?” he murmured.
“The pods are only guaranteed for twenty years.”
Joaquim opened his eyes and scanned the interior of the ship. Xai leaned over and gave him the fourth shot. He looked out at the great hole in the side of his ship. “Where are we?” he asked finally.
“I’m not sure,” Xai said. “We’re being towed somewhere by a Malloxian scavenger ship, but my AI is down so I don’t know where.”
Joaquim made a small surprised sound. “How long until it is up again?”
Xai looked at the sensors. “Six hours,” she said, quite deliberately neglecting to add ‘I hope’.
Joaquim turned his head and looked at her, his expression contemplative. Xai looked away, uncertain. “And recently,” Joaquim said pensively, “your hull was breached.” Xai looked back, surprised. “The smell,” he said, waving an emaciated hand. “You can never get rid of that smell. I trust that you got rid of the acid?” Xai nodded. “Good,” he said. He took a deep breath and maneuvered himself into a sitting position, his legs crossed in the lotus position. He looked terribly elegant. Xai felt clumsy and inexperienced, hanging before him in a great bulky PES.
“Now,” he said, facing her, “perhaps you might explain how you got into this position?”
Xai blinked uncertainly. She had no idea what to say. How could she trust him? What would she tell him? Silently she berated herself for not coming up with some sort of cover story. Everybody in the vids had a cover story. What had she been thinking?
Joaquim seemed to understand at least some of what was going through her head. “I give you my word that I will not betray your trust,” he said solemnly. “Besides, according to my people, as you saved my life, it is now, in some manner, yours.”
Xai blinked, surprised. “That seems a little excessive.”
Joaquim grinned, a wide flash of startlingly white teeth. “Mine,” he said, “are an excessive people. Now, please. I have been in stasis since before you were born. Surely much has occurred.”
Xai thought for a moment. “Cowards have no allies,” T’ei Xeit had once said. “Do you know any Messinian history?” Xai asked finally.
Joaquim tipped his head back and stroked his bushy beard. “Last I heard,” he said pensively, “one of the factions of the nobility had taken control of the planet. This was after a civil war, I believe.”
Xai frowned. Explaining from that point to the present would take about three days. “More or less,” Xai said finally. “That faction—the Ke-i’dzei—were exiled from the planet eventually. To Prime.”
“I’m one of them,” she continued. “A Ke-i’dzei. Sort of. At any rate, I was with them on a Prima Starbase. Last month, it was attacked by a Fleet army. An unnecessarily big Fleet army, actually. This ship was built by a friend of mine—I just happened to be on it when they attacked. I jettisoned and headed for the nearest Weakness Point. I had to go through the debris field to get there, and when I was in the debris field the Malloxian scavenger ship came by.”
“And you hid your ship in mine,” Joaquim finished for her, “went exploring, and found me.”
“Exactly.”
Joaquim nodded. “Interesting. And you are—what—seventeen years old?”
“Nineteen,” Xai corrected, not certain whether to feel affronted.
Joaquim smiled. “Forgive me,” he said gently. He looked up through the translucent hull of the Tellorian at the ceiling of his own ship, his expression thoughtful. “Well, Xai Ke-i’dzei,” he said finally, “If you give me that last injection, I will return the favor and explain how I came here. And,” he added, stroking his bushy chin, “if you are able to find me a razor, I will even attempt to make it interesting.”
Chapter Nineteen
SHAVING turned out to be a somewhat more complicated affair than Xai had expected, since Joaquim was too weak to do it himself. She found Marcus’ razor in a cabinet, along with a vacuum cleaner whose purpose became swiftly evident after the first clump of hair drifted off to hang inelegantly in the air before her.
She shaved his cheeks first, as carefully as she could, baring a lean, emaciated face with a wry smile. Then she shaved his head in what was known as the T’lasian cut, leaving about half a centimeter of hair uniformly across his head. Seeing the relish with which he ran his hand over his skull, and knowing how peculiar her own head must look, with fifteen centimeters of straight black hair standing out in every direction, she mustered her courage and shaved her own.
It gave her a strange chill, when she saw her shorn head in the small hand-held mirror. She felt as if she had broken with what she had once been and was now something wholly different, something strange and new, for which she had no name.
“There,” Joaquim said, interrupting her reverie, “we are equally bald now.” Xai laughed and put the razor and vacuum away, dumping its contents into the recycler.
“I would ask that we do something,” Joaquim said seriously.
Xai nodded.
“The people in my ship have been dead for years,” he told her. “But to me they have only been dead minutes. I disregard the passengers. But the captain was my cousin.”
“I’m sorry.”
Joaquim shrugged, his expression pensive. “We were not close. But I would not have it said that I did not fulfill my duty to him as kin. So with your permission, I will sing the Departure.”
“Go right ahead.”
Joaquim tipped his head back, paused a beat, and began to sing.
It was a simple song, sung well in a light, comfortable tenor. It started softly and rose, cresting with feeling to fall into silence. The Departure was a good name for it, for it was filled with sadness, touched with anger, steeped in farewell. When he was finished they both sat quietly for a moment, letting the sound of it fade into silence.
“That was beautiful,” Xai said finally.
“Yes,” Joaquim said pensively. “And very old. It has been with my people for a long time.” He turned then to look at her, his expression keen. “Do you know of my people, the T’lasians?”
Xai blinked. “Not really,” she said finally. Joaquim laughed.
“The refreshing honesty of youth,” he said wryly. “Very good. Well,” he continued, smiling, “I am a T’lasian. Literally that means out of Lasia—a planet in what is now Fleet space. Lasia is a small, rather barren planet whose only real assets are yattow mines. You know what yattow is,” he asked, “the chief component in pre-stressed multihulls?” Xai nodded. “Well,” Joaquim continued, “we were the ones who discovered it. We used it to make small space ships—ships like this one,” he said, gesturing around the Tellorian, “and slightly bigger. My people in that time were artisans—rather independent and,” he added dryly, “fiercely competitive.”
“About eight hundred years ago,” Joaquim continued, “Fleet exhausted their native supply of teke, the mineral they were using to build their ships. One of their scientific squadrons had demonstrated that yattow could be used to make much larger ships than the sort we made. At the time Fleet was at war with the Malvonians, and desperately needed more ships.
“To make a long story short, they attacked us. We were no match for them. This was—thank all the saints—well before they had developed the Alameda virus. Six hundred and forty four ships escaped the planet before it was taken and the remaining inhabitants enslaved by Fleet. The escapees were led by Prama Aveiro Syng. She was the one who wrote the Departure I just sang.
“At any rate, the People fled into the far reaches of the galaxy. And there, when all seemed lost, they held their fi
rst Council.
“You must understand,” Joaquim said seriously, “that we are speaking of mythical history. I am quite certain, knowing my people, that it did not happen so smoothly, and that much blood ran before the Consensus was reached. But the People decided that they would not attempt to colonize any planet. Instead, they would stay in space until they could take back Lasia. In the interim, they would work for profit—as independent traders, haulers of cargo, space explorers. And, once a year, all who could would meet at the Salak.”
Xai nodded. The Salak was a quadrant-renown Space Station, a huge set of rings devoted entirely to a permanent trade fair run by the T’lasians. It was one of the most profitable tourist attractions that existed, and brought immense profits to tour guides across the Empires. Even Starbase 42319 had sent a group there every year—regularly, like clockwork. Marcus’s mother had gone once, coming back manned with months of stories and toys. Lord, the toys!
“Of course,” Joaquim said, interrupting Xai’s reverie, “I am sure you are wondering, what does all this have to do with how Joaquim Salazar Syng was stranded in deep space?” Xai nodded, even though she hadn’t been wondering, enthralled as she was by his mellifluous speaking voice and the sheer wealth of human company. “Well,” Joaquim continued, “to understand this you must know about my brother.
“My brother, Ricardo Allegra Syng, is—or at least was—one of the leaders of my generation. He was a council member before he turned thirty—absolutely unheard of. He was a rising star—everyone knew it.
“Sanjay, my cousin, and I both worked with him. Sanjay was a better trader than I, but I was the better pilot. So the two of us ran goods through Rydia while Ricardo ran our Salak booth and represented our interests before the Council. We were doing well—we only had to make one trading run a year. The rest of the time we lived off our profits.
“But young men are greedy, and think too much of themselves. And if Ricardo was going to gain more power in the Council, he was going to have to outmaneuver the Mallais family, who had been dead set against us ever since I refused their offer of marriage. Not,” Joaquim added, smiling, “that she was unattractive. I was quite fond of her. But she was rather on the bossy side, and I… well, I had other interests.
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