29
JOINING THE SYSTEM
No sign of
Willow
or the black ship as we entered the Troyen system. That didn’t mean a thing—starships can hide just by powering down. Put them in orbit around a gas giant, and they pass for bits of space rock.
Nothing shot at
Jacaranda
as we settled into planetary orbit. Dade claimed that was a good sign. Over the past few days, he’d repeatedly stated his opinion that no one on Troyen had any surface-to-space missiles left; the Fasskisters’ nanites had taken care of that He admitted it was possible some missile bases had escaped the Swarm—if they were sealed off well enough and protected with huge clouds of defense nano—but in that case, the missiles would have been used, wouldn’t they? When everybody else was fighting with swords and spears, an aerial bombardment would be so valuable, no army would have kept the missiles on ice for twenty whole years. Especially when the Swarm nanites were a constant threat. Any commander with common sense would use the bombs while they were still good.
“And what about the missile that nearly hit the moonbase?” Tobit had asked. “Was that a figment of York’s imagination?”
Benjamin shrugged. “It
didn’t
hit the moonbase, did it? It was an absolutely perfect miss—(close enough to scare people into evacuating, but not to hurt anyone. Then surprise, surprise, as soon as the base personnel scurry away.
Willow
shows up on its secret mission.”
“Oh boy,” Festina said, whacking her forehead lightly with her palm. “Ouch.”
I wasn’t quite sure what Dade meant. “Um…are you saying maybe
Willow
shot at us? To make everybody clear out?”
Dade nodded. “They could have modified a standard probe missile once they came in-system. That way they wouldn’t have any lethal weapons aboard while they were still in deep space—keep the League of Peoples happy.
Willow
lobbed the missile at your base, but made sure it didn’t come close enough to do real damage. No sentients were truly at risk, so the League wouldn’t give a damn.”
“I hate to say it,” Tobit growled, “but the kid makes sense.”
“So I can come with you after all?” Dade said.
He looked back and forth between Tobit and Festina. The two of them exchanged looks but didn’t speak.
“I know what you’ve been thinking,” Dade told them. “You don’t want me down on Troyen with you because I’m not a real Explorer.”
Festina and Tobit had never said that to him…not in so many words. But in all their planning for the mission, there’d been sort of a kind of a subtext that maybe he’d be left behind. It was always, “Tobit, you could do this,” and “Edward, you can carry that,” with no, “Benjamin, here’s what
you’ll
do.”
Now Festina answered Dade in a quiet voice. “You’re a cadet,” she said. “Just here on training rotation. It would be irresponsible of us to jeopardize your life, taking you down to a planet at war, when Phylar, Edward, and I are fully qualified Explorers.”
“You aren’t an Explorer, you’re an admiral,” Dade replied. He ignored Festina’s steely glare. “And York isn’t a qualified Explorer, you know he isn’t—he’s never stepped foot into the Academy. That just leaves Tobit, and a landing party has to have at least two Explorers if they’re available.”
“Benny…” Tobit began.
“Don’t Benny me,” Dade snapped. “The real reason you don’t want me is that I’m not…I don’t look like an Explorer. Isn’t that it? I’m just a normal guy, who never had the rough life you people did, because I don’t have a birthmark or a deformed arm or a…” He just waved in my direction. “Whatever. I’m sorry the navy fucked you folks over, but that’s not my fault. And it’s ancient history. I mean,” he said, gesturing toward Festina, “here I am with the very woman who put an end to that crap, and you want to discriminate against me because I
don’t
have anything wrong with me. Listen, Admiral, you’re the reason I’m here. You’re the reason the navy has to let everyday people into Explorer Academy, and you’re the reason I volunteered for the corps. You managed to fix an old injustice, and I thought, ‘Hey, I could help.’ The sooner people like me get integrated into the corps, file sooner the navy stops thinking of Explorers as totally expendable freaks. But let me tell you, I’ve received nothing but grief ever since I signed up. The teachers at the Academy…the other students…all of you here…you treat me like some annoying embarrassment who might go away if you just marginalize me enough. Well, I’m
not
going away—I’m going to be an Explorer. I just wish you’d accept that and start treating me as one of the team!”
Silence. I don’t know what anyone else was doing because I’d glued my gaze to my feet. The air was filled with the hot smell of emotions, but everything was all mixed together: anger, guilt, indignation, embarrassment, coming from all directions.
Finally, Festina sighed. “Dade—once upon a time I would have said anyone who wanted to be an Explorer was too fucking insane to be allowed into the corps. But seeing as I
am
the woman who forced the navy to consider Explorers as more than ‘expendable freaks’…all I’ll say is that you worry me. You might have depths I can’t see, but you sure come across as a starry-eyed kid who’s too gung ho to realize the real world is dangerous. You’ve lived a damned pampered life, no matter what hardships you think you’ve faced, and all the Academy training in the galaxy hasn’t prepared you to take care of yourself.
“But,” she went on, “you aren’t going to figure that out till you see for yourself. So congratulations; you can land with us on Troyen. I’m going to gamble that taking you down to a war-ravaged planet will open your eyes without getting the rest of us killed. The prospect of relying on you to watch my back scares the piss out of me, but I’m going to take the risk. Otherwise, I might start believing the Admiralty had the right idea all along, only picking Explorers from people who know the universe is a cruel and bitter place. People who were
born
knowing it.”
Very pointedly, she tipped her head to give the boy a face-on view of her birthmark. “I grew up knowing something you didn’t, Dade. So did Tobit. So did Kaisho. So did York over there, even if he still doesn’t think he deserves an Explorer’s uniform. York never went to the Academy, but the uniform fits him just fine. As for you, Dade— I’m giving you a chance because in your whole damned life, I don’t think you’ve ever been put to the test. Maybe by some miracle, you’ll find a real Explorer in your heart. If you don’t…well, considering we’ll be landing in a war zone, your future career is the least of your worries.”
She waited a moment, then did the most unexpected thing an Explorer could do: lifted her hand, gave Dade a salute, and said crisply, “Dismissed.” It took the boy a moment to remember Festina was an admiral; then his face went stony, he returned her salute, and walked stiffly out of the room.
The rest of us stayed where we were a moment, then slowly let out our breaths. In a low voice, Festina asked, “What do you think, Kaish? Any mystic visions of the boy smartening up?”
Kaisho reached both hands up to the hair over her face and suddenly lifted it high…as if her cheeks were hot and in desperate need of air. I caught a glimpse of her handsome crinkled face, just a tiny bit damp with sweat; then she let the hair fall back into place.
“The boy
does
have hidden depths,” she whispered. “But I don’t think you’ll like them.”
30
CHECKING IN ON THE NEIGHBORS
Three full orbits of Troyen and we still hadn’t picked up any transmissions from people down on the ground.
“Um,” I murmured to Festina. “What if the Explorers’ radios have been eaten by Fasskister nanites?”
Festina shook her head. “As soon as the navy heard about the Fasskisters’ Swarm, our researchers developed equipment that was immune to the little buggers. Otherwise, the whole fleet would be at the Fasskisters’ mercy.”
“Yeah,” Tobit put in, “everything we carry should be fine. Of course,” he added, “the Fasskisters have probably invented a Swarm that’ll eat our
new
equipment. But we’ll cross our fingers there isn’t any of that on Troyen.”
“There shouldn’t be,” Festina said. “If
Willow’s
Explorers aren’t transmitting, they’re just being careful. In a war zone, it’s dangerous to broadcast continuously, even if your messages are encrypted to look like static. Sooner or later, some army will decide you’re an undercover agent sending intelligence to the enemy; next thing you know, you’re surrounded by a platoon of spycatchers.”
Lucky for us, there was a fallback plan for making contact. Whenever an Explorer team is assigned to a ship, they’re given a “transmission second”—one second of the standard twenty-four-hour clock when they should try a burst transmission, if they’re ever on a planet where longer broadcasts are dangerous. It took a bit of calculating, converting
Willow
time to
Jacaranda
time and allowing for relativistic slippages in everybody’s clocks…but eventually, Festina and Tobit agreed that the folks down on Troyen would try a single blip of contact at 23:46:22,
Jacaranda
time. Since it was only ship’s morning, we had most of the day before we’d hear anything.
“So, a whole day to kill,” Tobit said. “You folks play poker?”
“Enough to know I don’t want to play with you,” Festina told him. “What do you say to a side trip?”
“Where?”
Instead of answering, she turned to me. “Edward, do you know exactly what
Willow
did its five days in this system? Were you watching the whole time?”
“I wasn’t watching at all. The base’s monitors just had a big display of what navy ships were close by.
Willow
showed up on the list, and stayed there till they picked me up to go home.”
“So
Willow
might not have stayed near Troyen all the time. They could have gone somewhere else for a while.”
“But there’s nowhere else to go in this system,” Dade said. “Nowhere else inhabited, anyway.”
“Wrong,” Festina told him. “There’s an orbital around the sun. Occupied by Fasskisters who don’t want to leave the area, for fear of being killed by the League.” She smiled grimly. “Now ask yourself: if anyone in the galaxy created specialized nano like the stuff on
Willow
that was stealing queen’s venom, who would it be?”
“Oh,” Dade said. “Yeah.”
Festina nodded. “Let’s assume
Willow
visited the orbital while they were in this system. And let’s assume the Fasskisters smuggled nano onto the
Willow
during that visit. Shouldn’t someone ask them why?”
Like most orbitals, it was a big cylinder floating in space, the surface skin covered with photocells that gathered energy from the sun. Unlike most orbitals, the photocells had been arranged into bands running lengthways with strips of white in between, so that the whole cylinder was covered with long black-and-white stripes.
“Assholes,” Festina muttered. We were all sitting in the bridge’s Visitors’ Gallery, watching as
Jacaranda
slowly approached the Fasskister habitat.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Do you know why they left some stripes clear…even though they could collect more power if they covered the whole damned surface?”
“No,” I said.
“They did it so you’d know the orbital wasn’t spinning,” she told me. “Anyone flying up can see the stripes are holding steady…so the Fasskisters can’t be producing gravity with good old centrifugal force.”
“They don’t have gravity in there?”
“They have it; they just use some flashy fancy artificial field that guzzles energy twenty-four hours a day. This close to the sun, they have solar power to spare…but it’s still waste for the sake of waste.”
“Admiral,” Prope said, turning around in her command chair, “they aren’t answering our requests to dock.”
“Can we dock anyway?” Festina asked.
“Affirmative,” Prope answered, “but they probably won’t like it. Docking without permission can be interpreted as intent to commit piracy.”
Festina made a face. “Send them a message in English, Fasskister and Mandasar. Say we’re worried about their status because they’ve gone incommunicado. If we don’t get a reply in five minutes, we’ll assume they’re in trouble and come to give aid.”
“Begging the admiral’s pardon,” Prope said, without an ounce of begging in her voice, “but that’s a standard tactic for pirates too. Even if the target is broadcasting like mad, the pirate ship says, ‘We can’t hear anything,’ and keeps coming in. Naive victims think their radios are broken and let the pirate come aboard. More experienced sailors think they’re under attack and take defensive action.”
“What kind of defensive action?”
Prope shrugged. “The Fasskisters believe they can’t leave this system because the League considers them non-sentient. Under such conditions, they may have decided they have nothing to lose by arming themselves with lethal weapons. Especially with warring Mandasars nearby. The Fasskisters could legitimately argue they were afraid of being attacked.”
Festina drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair. After a few seconds, she said, “Send the message and go in anyway. Take any precautions you think necessary. I’ll assume responsibility.”
“Aye-aye, Admiral,” Prope said. She tried to make her voice sound icy-full of misgivings…but if I knew Prope, she’d lived her whole life hoping to luck into an honest-to-God space battle.
We docked without incident—sliding up to a hatch on the orbital’s dark side (the half that wasn’t facing the sun), and dropping our Sperm-field so we could stretch out a docking tube. Prope hated cutting the field; star captains feel kind of naked when they can’t go FTL to get away from trouble. (It must have mortified her when the black ship had ripped away
Jacaranda’
s field back at Starbase Ms—like getting her clothes torn off in public.) Prope kept telling Festina, over and over, “One hour on the orbital…not a second more, if you expect us to reestablish the tail and get back to Troyen by 23:46:22.”
I could tell Festina wasn’t too happy with the time limit; but considering the circumstances, she couldn’t argue. One hour would have to do.
Festina declared our jaunt to the orbital would be Explorers only. The Mandasars grumped, but the admiral held firm—with all the bad feeling between Mandasars and Fasskisters, it wouldn’t help to take the hive along.
Kaisho wanted to go too. “Why?” Festina asked.
“You’ll see,” Kaisho told her.
“Come on, Kaish,” Festina said, “cut the inscrutable-alien crap. Either give me a straight answer or stay on
Jacaranda.”
“Sorry,” Kaisho replied, “but the Balrog loves watching lesser beings get smacked in the face with surprises. Just between you and me, the damned moss really gets off on human astonishment.”
“Shit,” Festina growled. “Just once I’d like to meet an alien who enjoyed giving clear explanations of what the fuck is going on.”
We didn’t wear tightsuits this trip; apparently Fasskisters found the suits grossly offensive, though they never said why. With any group of aliens, there’s always some area where they just mutter, “Can’t you see it’s indecent?” and refuse to go into details. Anyway, the dock hatch reported good air on the orbital’s interior, and we didn’t have time to get dressed up. There could still be nasty germs wafting about…but if the Fasskisters ever wanted to regain their claim to sentience, they’d make sure we weren’t exposed to anything that could hurt us.
“All right,” Festina said, as we hovered Weightless in front of the dock’s airlock. “In we go.”
She pressed the button to open the door. One by one, we passed over the threshold; and immediately gravity clicked in, twisting around so that the outside of the cylinder was down. If I’d been taken by surprise, I might have fallen right back out into the docking tube…but lucky for me, Festina went first and I could watch how she grabbed the support bars just inside the door.
I got in without too much trouble, followed by Tobit and Dade. All three of the others tapped their throats as soon as they were inside, activating the radio transceivers implanted in their necks. It made me feel a bit bad, to be an Explorer without a throat implant…but then, I wasn’t a
real
Explorer, was I?
Meanwhile, they did the usual, “Testing, testing,” and Lieutenant Harque back on
Jacaranda
answered, “Receiving loud and clear.” Harque’s voice came in on receivers we’d clipped to our belts. The receivers could also transmit if you pushed the right button, but there was no need for that if you had a throat implant.
Festina worked the airlock while the rest of us stood back trying not to look nervous. The far door of the lock had a tiny peekaboo screen that wasn’t working—either the Fasskisters had deliberately blinded the cameras, or the system had broken down sometime in the past twenty years and nobody bothered to fix it. From my days on the moonbase, I knew the Fasskisters only got supply ships once every three years…so maybe they didn’t care a whole lot if the dock-area cameras went out.
“Are we set?” Festina asked, just before she pushed the button to open the inner door.
Dade tried to draw his stunner, but Tobit slapped the boy’s wrist. It was pretty unfriendly to be carrying guns at all; having them drawn and ready was going too far.
The door whisked open. A second later, the smell of buttered toast filled my nostrils. In front of us, a ramp led up at an easy slope; and the ramp was covered with glowing red moss.