Her Brother's Keeper - eARC Page 23

  “When was that?” Marcus asked.

  “Seven years,” Halifax replied. “New Austin years, I mean.”

  “How does a colony that small even sustain itself?” Devree asked.

  “Their primary economic resource is the export of locally grown plant matter and alien artifacts,” Wade said, reading from his handheld. “I just looked it up.”

  “Alien artifacts?”

  Halifax grinned. “Aye. Opal is inhabited.”

  Devree’s eyes grew wide. “I’ve never seen an alien before.”

  “You may or may not see one while we’re there,” Halifax said. “They’re reclusive.”

  “It says that they’re at a stage roughly equivalent to the Stone Age,” Wade said, reading further. “Their population is small, estimated to be only a few million on the whole planet. They trade trinkets and crafted goods to the human colonists, who sell them on the open market.”

  “The big money is in relics from extinct alien species,” Markgraf said. “That’s probably why the colony on Opal isn’t booming. There are a few known planets with indigenous civilizations at that level. Their artifacts are expensive novelties for collectors, and that’s about it.”

  “What do these beings look like?” Hondo asked, setting down his cards.

  Wade raised his handheld so everyone at the table to could see the screen. “Check it out.”

  “I can’t tell if it’s cute or horrifying,” Devree said. The creature on the screen was short, little more than a meter tall, with smooth, leathery skin that varied from blue to brown. Its short arms and legs both ended in hands with opposable digits, tipped with claws. It had a mouth full of pointy, needle like teeth, and two large, round red eyes.

  “They’re unsettling when you first see them,” Halifax said. “Opal’s ecosystem is similar to Earth’s, and these beasties fill the role that our ancestors once did. But when you get close, you realize just how alien they are. They don’t have noses, for example, like mammals on Earth do. They breathe through their mouths, make this sickly wheezing sound. They don’t talk to humans—they can’t. Their mouths are too different, they can’t pronounce human languages. They’re not dumb, though. They learned a crude form of sign language, which they use to communicate with the colonists.”

  “They reproduce asexually,” Wade said, reading from his screen again. “They don’t really have sexes. Or sex, I guess.”

  Devree raised an eyebrow. “How dull.”

  “They’ll bash your head in and eat your guts if you walk in on one of their gatherings at the wrong time,” Halifax continued, “but they’re mostly harmless. Humans are a curiosity to them, nothing more. It’s the colonists you need to be wary of.” When the group looked at question at him, he leaned in closer and explained. “They’ve been isolated on that world for a long time, since first contact with the Maggots. They were like a doomsday cult, hoping that if they settled there they’d be overlooked by the Maggots while the rest of humanity was slaughtered.”

  “It worked,” Wade said. “It says here that even when the war came through this sector, the Maggots never even approached Opal.”

  “Aye, and that’s where it gets strange,” Halifax said. “The Maggots did come through this system. I read up on all the reports the last time I was through here. It wasn’t a big force, but they were tracked by Concordiat ships. They could’ve easily blasted the colony from orbit. They never left any other human colonies unscathed. But instead, they just left the system and never returned.”

  “After the war,” Wade read, “the Concordiat government sent an envoy to Opal to try to learn why the colony wasn’t attacked. Rumors were flying that the colonists had made some kind of deal with the Maggots, but that doesn’t make sense, because we never were able to communicate with them at all.”

  “What did they determine?” Hondo asked.

  “Pretty much nothing,” Wade said. “It says here that the inquiry was inconclusive, and they left. That was over a hundred years ago. They were mostly forgotten about after that.”

  “As I said, they’re strange folk,” Halifax said. “If the captain lets us off the ship while we’re planetside, you’ll do well to stay out of their settlement. The traders had a nice little trading post established while I was there. You won’t likely see too many of the locals. Rumor has it they tried to forget that they’re the aliens on that world, never told the children about humanity’s real origin. I don’t know if there’s anything to that, but they do act as if they worship their planet. They fancy themselves its guardians and servants. They’re especially protective of the natives.”

  “How do you know all this?” Marcus asked. “How long were you there?”

  Halifax crinkled his brow as he tried to remember. “Maybe a couple of local weeks? The ship I was on needed engine repairs while she was there. We stayed for longer than planned. Anyway I was plowing this local girl, if you follow me. Buxom young thing, inexperienced but eager. She told me all this.” Devree frowned, and Halifax grinned sheepishly. “Begging your pardon, lassie. I said too much.”

  “I thought you said the locals are reclusive,” she said.

  “Aye. But they’re still human, and there are thousands of them. It’s frowned upon, but some of them fraternize with off-worlders, especially the young people. Colony Fever is universal, you know.”

  “So, you said it’d be a good idea to stay out of their settlement?”

  “It really depends. We may get a cool reception, but there are things to see there. It’s best to abide by all of their rules, no matter how strange. They punish infractions harshly, so they say, but I don’t really know. All of that is kept quiet, and even the lovely lassie with the enormous knockers wouldn’t tell me the details.”

  Markgraf looked thoughtful for a moment. “If I didn’t know better,” the veteran intelligence officer said, “I’d say you were using that girl as a way to get information. Classic honeypot.”

  Halifax grinned. “Believe it or no, I’m not just a handsome face who’s handy with a gun.”

  “You’re not handsome, for one thing,” Marcus said. “It’s a good thing you’re handy with a gun.”

  “I think you’re all gross,” a familiar voice said. The mercenaries looked up to see Annabelle Winchester enter the common area.

  “Good to see you too, baby,” Marcus said. His daughter hugged him, then sat down at the table with the group. She was dressed in the same green flight suit the rest of the crew wore, with her hair done up in a tight braid to keep it out of the way in freefall. Marcus didn’t want to embarrass her by saying so, but he was so proud of her he felt as if he might burst. “How you been holding up?”

  “They keep me busy,” Annie said, peeling the top off of a heated flight meal. “Twelve-hour shifts every day.” She took a bite of her meal and frowned.

  Marcus smiled. “You said you wanted to be a spacer, kiddo.”

  “It’s not bad,” she said. “I’m not whining, I was just saying.”

  “I think it’s a fine thing you’re doing, little lassie,” Halifax said. “You may be surprised to learn that when I was your age, I got into a bit of trouble with the law myself.”

  “Yeah, no one is surprised by that,” Devree said.

  Halifax laughed and shook his head. “All this defamation of my character, it’s unfair. But it’s true. At fifteen standard years I was in a street gang on Olympus.”

  “You’re from Olympus?” Markgraf asked. “You don’t sound like you’re from Olympus. You don’t have the accent. Olympians talk like they’ve got a mouth full of rocks.”

  “Aye, but, I wasn’t born there. My mum took me there when I was just a babe, got passage on a free trader somehow. Grew up in the slums there, though, and it was the law of the jungle.” He looked up at Marcus. “Being on a ship is good for the girl. She’s safe, she’s busy, keeps the youthful piss and vinegar under control. When I was her age I’d have killed to get off that miserable rock.”

  “I like th
e Andromeda,” Annie said. “Everyone is nice, except for First Officer von Spandau.” She looked around to make sure no one else was listening. “I don’t know what that guy’s problem is,” she said more quietly. “He never smiles or anything.”

  Wade shrugged. “I heard he’s from the Concordiat Fleet. I was in for twelve years, and I saw more than a few officers like that. He’s not a bad guy, he’s just serious about running a tight ship. Believe me, kiddo, I saw a few free traders and independent spacers in my time, and none of them were as disciplined as the crew of this ship. None of their ships were in as good a shape, either. This ship is in top condition. That’s good. Space is unforgiving.”

  “That’s what he told me,” Annie said. She badly mimicked his accent. “Space is zee harsh und un-forgivink mistress! Now report to your station, schnell!”

  The table of mercenaries erupted in laughter. Marcus shook his head. “Where did my daughter learn to be so sarcastic?” he wondered aloud.

  “Uh, I wonder, Dad,” Annie said, rolling her eyes.

  “Oh. Right,” Marcus admitted. “Probably my fault.”

  Annie looked at her chrono. “I need to get going.” She stood up and cleared her tray from the table.”

  “Where you off to, kiddo?”

  “Gotta help Daye do some systems maintenance down in engineering.”

  “Yikes, how is that?” Devree asked. “The engineer seems like a real hardass.”

  Annie shrugged. “I haven’t really worked for her yet.”

  “Just do your best, honey,” Marcus advised, “and be respectful. Let Daye do the talking if you’re not sure what to say.”

  “I’ll be okay, Daddy,” Annie said. “I gotta go, though. I’ll see you guys later.” She dumped her waste in a receptacle and disappeared up the ladder.

  Devree smiled at Marcus. “She’s such a sweetie,” she said. “I can’t believe that girl got in trouble with the law.”

  “Believe it. You oughta see what she did to that other kid. Fractured her skull and broke her jaw. It was either this or she was going to juvenile detention for a year.”

  “Aye,” Halifax said, “but this other lass poisoned your girl’s horse, didn’t she? At her age, I’d have killed anyone what took from me what that little sodding wretch took from your daughter.”

  “It was Red Eye,” Marcus said. “The other girl, Victoria, she was hopped up on Red Eye. Makes you do crazy things.”

  Devree shook her head. “Red Eye made the rounds on Mandalay when I was a patrol cop there. One time a bad batch went around the slums. It was making people go insane, like violently insane, attacking others and trying to bite their faces off. By beating the shit out of that girl, your daughter probably saved her life, Marcus. She’ll get the help she needs now, before that poison kills her.”

  “I think it worked out pretty well, all things considered. I’m just worried about her mom. She’s at home, alone, pregnant, and her little girl is light-years away and can’t communicate. I know it’s hard on her.” Marcus sounded guiltier than he would’ve liked.

  “Ellie’s tough,” Wade said. “You know she’ll be fine. When you get home, you’re going to have a son to meet.”

  “You’re expecting a son?” Devree asked.

  “Not exactly,” Marcus admitted. “It was too early to tell when we left. I’m just…well, you know, a father hopes.”

  “I don’t know what you’re hoping for,” Wade said. “Annie’s just like you. She’s a little female clone of you. If anything, your boy’s as likely as not to take after his mom.”

  Marcus sipped his coffee thoughtfully. “You know, that wouldn’t be bad. This trip notwithstanding, mining is the family business now. It’d be nice if we had someone to take it over down the road.”

  “See?” Wade asked. “Everything’s going to be fine. Quit worrying.”

  * * *

  Devree had been right about one thing, Annie thought to herself: Chief Engineer Indira Nair was a hardass. The job that Annie and Tech Daye were tasked to do was fairly straightforward; the life-support system on the engineering deck had been acting up ever since the last translation, leaving it unpleasantly warm down there. A systems check had revealed that one of the computer subsystems was “fried” (as Daye had described it) and needed to be replaced.

  “It shouldn’t take too long,” Daye explained to Annie as they arrived on in engineering. “The ship’s internal systems are all modular, and components can be swapped out on the fly.”

  “Do you have to replace them often?” Annie asked.

  “It depends, really,” Daye said. “Some translations are harder on the systems than others. Transit shock is impossible to predict. Usually the hardware is unaffected, but sometimes the software gets so buggered up that the whole thing locks up. Sometimes we can run diagnostics and unbugger it, but other times it’s easier to swap it out with a spare from our supply, and work on getting the problem component running again later. Once in a while transit shock is bad enough that critical components like cooling fans or voltage regulators stop working, and it causes actual physical damage to the component. That’s what I think happened here.”

  Annie thought for a moment. “What happens when the spares in our supply get messed up, too?”

  Daye shook his head. “Then you’re in for a fun day. It doesn’t happen often. Usually components that are powered down are less likely to be affected, but not always. I’ve swapped out components before, only to find the replacement is just as nonfunctional as the original. It’s a headache.”

  “How is it we’ve been traveling in space for fifteen hundred years and we still haven’t figured this out?”

  Daye shrugged. “Chaos theory. It’s impossible to predict because there are too many variables, and some of the variables happen in the quantum space-time shunt and can’t be measured, because the shunt takes an immeasurably small amount of time. That’s one theory, anyway. There’s a lot about translating between systems that isn’t well understood, even though we do it on a routine basis. In ancient times, it was thought that such modes of travel would be impossible. It conflicted with their understanding of the universe. But even today, there are contradictory theories about what goes on during a translation. It’s all above my level. I tried reading some of the texts about it in school and it gave me a nosebleed. There is a lot they can’t explain yet.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like if one ship translates right after another, the one that went second might arrive first. Or, there might be a long delay between when the first and second ship arrives, even if they departed within minutes of each other. Sometimes, very rarely I mean, but it does happen, ships just disappear. The theory is it’s some kind of extreme time distortion, but that’s just a theory.”

  Annie blinked hard. “You’re right, it does give you a headache.”

  Someone else spoke up then. “Hello. We ran every diagnostic subroutine available and the system is still nonresponsive.” It was Assistant Engineer Delacroix. Annie remembered her from the boarding of the Agamemnon. The assistant engineer looked at her and smiled. “Hello, Annie. It’s good to see you again.”

  Annie smiled back. She loved the woman’s Classical French accent. It made her sound so sophisticated and cultured. “We’ll get it running again in no time, ma’am,” she said, doing her best to sound confident. She looked at Daye. “Uh, won’t we?”

  Daye nodded as he began to remove an access panel from the bulkhead. “I think so. The sooner the better. It’s damned hot in here.”

  “It’s insufferable!” It was Chief Engineer Indira Nair. Delacroix quietly stepped away as the chief engineer stood over Annie and Day, hand on her hips. She was sweating through her flight suit and was in a foul mood. “We can’t work like this.”

  Daye, crouched down on the deck, removing the panel, looked up at the engineer. “Understood, ma’am. We’ll have it up and running shortly.”

  Engineer Nair glanced at her transparent eyepiece, and didn�
�t look at Daye when she spoke to him. “Keep me updated.” Without another word, she walked away, climbing into her acceleration seat and workstation.

  The engineering deck was not large, so Annie had to talk quietly to ensure the engineer wouldn’t overheard. “What the hell is her problem?”

  Daye glanced over at Nair, then back at Annie. “She just likes things nice and ordered. Every really good engineer has a case of obsessive-compulsive disorder, they say.”

  “She’s so antisocial and bitchy!” Annie whispered, helping Daye remove the troublesome computer subsystem from the wall.

  “She’s an engineer,” Daye said simply.

  “I’m serious,” Annie said. “Even the XO isn’t that tight-assed. I’ve seen her around the ship. She barely talks to anybody, even in her down time. When the captain took me down here during my orientation, she didn’t say a word to me.”

  “I’m serious, too,” Daye insisted. “She’s an engineer, and a good one. That’s just how they act. I know it looks like everything pretty much runs itself down here, but this is the heart of the ship. A small problem here can turn into a big disaster for everyone if it’s not caught and corrected right away. Mechanically, the ship’s fusion motor is a fairly simple system. There are very few moving parts and very little to go wrong. It doesn’t require complex programming or sophisticated computers to keep it operational, so it’s not as likely to be affected by transit shock. If something does go wrong, though, it can be catastrophic. If containment fails, the fusion reaction can’t be controlled, and that’s the end of us. If there’s a radiation leak, the engineering deck will get the worst of it. Basically, any serious problem down here will probably see Ms. Delacroix being promoted to chief engineer shortly thereafter. Most shipboard engineers tend to be neurotic about keeping things in top condition. Everybody’s life depends on it.”

  As she helped Daye replace install the new components, Annie glanced over at the chief engineer, sitting in her workstation, monitoring the reactor and the propulsion system. She listened to the rumble of the engines as the accelerated the Andromeda through the void and thought about the incredible forces that had to not only contained, but controlled to make that possible. It left her in awe.