Back | Next
Contents

Chapter Twenty-One


Shuqdu Station


Without preamble, Hadraysa turned her head so that it was profiled against the fine dusting of stars showing through the bridge canopy. “This will be your one chance to see Shuqdu Station, Rodger Murphy.”

Murphy closed the book he’d been reading, hearing the tone of invitation in the captain’s voice. He pushed himself gently toward the cockpit-sized “bridge,” drifting toward the navigator/comm operator’s seat just behind her.

“Secure yourself,” Hadraysa instructed. It had taken a while to become accustomed to her brusque manner. From what little she’d shared, she was from a sect of RockHounds whose dedication to equality and self-reliance bordered on a religion. They only used a title on a first meeting, refused to follow a Legate’s orders except on a case-by-case basis, and almost all eschewed life on stations. Instead, they inhabited small outposts, often no bigger than two or three nuclear families. Her sole crewmember, Jabrael, was mute, extremely introverted, but very capable. It was quite possible that he was autistic and so, another example of the breedsensing inequities with which the RockHounds contended.

As Murphy strapped into one of the two rear seats offset to either side of the pilot’s, she glanced at his book. “Still reading that make-believe story?” Another way in which her sect was reminiscent of some orthodox religious groups: fiction was deemed an idle distraction from the serious work of living a productive life. “What is it called?”

Murphy smiled. “Treasure Island. It’s about pirates.”

She snorted. “I am surprised you trifle with such distractions, Rodger Murphy. They are beneath the interest of a commander.”

He smiled. “We think otherwise. In addition to being entertainment, stories can be useful.”

“How so?”

“To relax. To experience how others lived and thought in times past. To ask and ponder questions freed from the prejudices of the time in which one lives.”

She sighed. “Yours is a failing not uncommon among notable commanders. The same depth of thought that makes you excellent leaders also makes you more likely to be philosophers. Regrettably.”

He laughed. “I think that’s the first time anyone ever called me a ‘philosopher.’”

She half-turned to show him a broad smile. “Then perhaps there is hope for you yet. Now, attend: can you see the station up ahead? Low at the center of the canopy?”

He had to squint to make out the long, cigar-shaped rock that grew as he watched. Only when Hadraysa puffed the attitude thrusters to bring them in line with its long axis did Murphy notice it was spinning, and then only because the change in viewpoint revealed the movement of the shadows on its rough surface. “It will be nice to stand in some gee-equivalent again.”

“It’s barely point two,” she remarked. “And you might find it a bit disorienting. Shuqdu is actually tumbling in all three axes, but the yaw and pitch are so gradual that only the most experienced RockHounds can see it with the naked eye. But inside, it’s just enough to trick your inner ear and your eye. It takes getting used to.” She shrugged. “Of course, you won’t have the chance.”

“So I’m not to see the station.”

“You are not.” Her tone indicated that had been decided well ahead of time.

Murphy noticed that they did not seem to be headed for the ten-meter aperture that seemed to be a cleft leading to Shuqdu Station’s primary docking bay, but a smaller patch of darkness just above it. “We’re not even heading to the main interface, are we?”

Hadraysa nodded approvingly. “You have good eyes . . . for a philosopher. No: we will berth at a smaller facility which has ready access to one end of the launch tube.”

“Launch tube?”

“A railgun that runs the length of Shuqdu. It can send out ships in either direction. It’s a good way to get into the deep black before engaging thrusters. The Kulsians would have to be looking straight up our exhausts to spot us. And even then—” She halted abruptly, as if she’d been about to reveal something she shouldn’t. “Lean back, Rodger Murphy. The final approach involves some tricky piloting. The quick changes of vector can be unsettling.” One last grin. “Particularly for philosophers.”

* * *

The same three RockHounds who had visited Murphy in his quarters on Spin One were waiting for him as Hadraysa escorted him out and then returned to her ship without so much as a glance in his direction.

“We are honored that you have come here, Colonel Murphy,” said the oldest. “You may call me Ogweln.” He gestured to the middle-aged RockHound, who smiled. “You may call my associate Fvaranq.”

Murphy nodded to both, glanced at the young salvager, who still avoided meeting his eyes. “And how may I call you?”

Ogweln shook his head. “He prefers not to be addressed by any name.”

So, personal choice? Another sectarian restriction? A security firewall? There was no way of knowing and no tactful way to ask, so Murphy simply said, “I see and shall comply.”

The salvager glanced at him briefly and offered the faintest of nods.

Murphy accepted his duffel from Jabrael, who he had not heard approach and who left before he could say thanks. “So what now?”

“We commence our journey. But we must ask you to wear a blindfold from here on, Colonel Murphy. You may remove it when you are in our craft and in a compartment without a view of the exterior. We hope you shall not be inconvenienced or insulted by this requirement.”

Murphy smiled. “I half expected it, Ogweln.”

“Excellent. We shall be joined by three others. We shall go to a blind compartment aboard the ship once we are underway, that you may meet them properly. Now, if you will allow us to take your bag, we shall cover your eyes and begin our travels.”


Deep Space, Shex system


Five days later, Fvaranq called Murphy from the other side of the hatchway of the four-bunk compartment that he shared with the rest of the crew. “Colonel, are you awake?”

“I am,” he answered, looking up from Treasure Island. The only sign that Murphy was an honored guest was that he had a bunk of his own. The other six shared—or were, as the navy had called it, hot-bunking. A two-person stateroom was reserved for Ogweln and the ship’s captain, who also elected not to share her name.

Fvaranq opened the hatch slightly. “We have arrived.”

Murphy set aside his book and reached for the hood that had served as his blindfold when outside the stolid gray bulkheads hemming him in.

“You will not need that again until we begin our return.” Fvaranq glanced at Treasure Island, noted the bookmark. “You have almost finished the story.”

Murphy nodded. “I read it once before, when I was a little kid—uh, child.”

“Why read it a second time?”

“I see it differently, now.” Which was only part of the truth. The other half was that comparatively few books had made the trip into the future with the Lost Soldiers. Their Ktor abductors had either not bothered to take any along with the other cargo they had stolen or had purged any that had been unintentionally included. The sum total of the Lost Soldiers’ lending library on Spin One was comprised of whatever had been buried at the bottom of the backpacks of the infantrymen among them.

Murphy stood into slight resistance. Fvaranq nodded at his rapid adjustment to the momentum. “We will conclude braking any moment now. Come: we should be strapped in when we tumble.”

They made their way to the bridge: a four-seat module with a canopy shaped like a low-slung geodesic dome. The shields were down, not just against rads but to eliminate disorienting the pilot as the craft went through a one-hundred-eighty-degree pitch to face their destination.

“Secured?” asked the pilot as soon as Murphy’s five-point harness fastened with a clack.

“Aye.” Murphy had adopted the term during the journey out with Hadraysa. On their own ships, many of the more orthodox RockHounds became irritated if passengers did not adopt basic shipboard vernacular.

Without announcing the maneuver, the captain tumbled her ship sharply. Murphy’s stomach seemed to rise up, its contents threatening to continue on that vector.

He had just finished gulping back a good portion of his breakfast when the canopy shields retracted: it was as if the triangular segments were scales of an insect folding back upon each other with brisk, geometric precision.

Murphy blinked. They were drifting toward what appeared to be the jagged ruin of a wall or building, dim in the weak rays of distant Shex, the shadows faintly doubled by the glow from Jrar.

“Flammarion effect,” Murphy muttered, recalling the word from either a science class or an old science fiction novel: he couldn’t recall which.

“A what?” Ogweln murmured.

“The doubled shadow that occurs in binary systems.”

“Hmm. Interesting,” the captain mumbled. Her tone suggested the last thing she’d expected to hear out of the mouth of a Lost Soldier was a space-relevant term. “And that is all you have to say?”

Murphy shrugged. “For now, yes.”

“Well,” she sighed, “I lose that bet.”

“You do indeed,” Fvaranq chuckled. “Care to double it?”

“Buying you one drink is more than I can easily tolerate. I’ll not risk two.”

Murphy glanced between them. “What was I expected to say?”

“Something about the size of the wreck before us.”

Murphy looked at it again. “A wreck? As in, a ship?”

The captain chortled. “That drink might yet be mine, Fvaranq.”

“We’ll see.”

Ogweln waved them to silence. “So, did you or did you not anticipate that our salvage included such large wrecks as this one?”

Murphy shrugged. “I didn’t have any preconceived notions about your salvage operations. Or rather, I put them aside after you visited me.”

The captain’s tone was testy. “Fvaranq! Did you give him a hint when you were on Spin One? Why you conniving, station-hugging—”

“Be still,” Ogweln murmured. The captain halted in mid-complaint. “Tell me, Colonel: if you could have asked us one question after we visited you, what would it have been?”

Murphy stared at the object toward which they were slowly drifting: he couldn’t see where any of its sides ended. “I would have asked, ‘Just whose ships are the RockHounds salvaging?’”

Ogweln smiled. “Well, our own, of course. As you have no doubt deduced, we can never leave a wreck or a crippled craft adrift, lest the Kulsians detect it. They would learn of our existence. And if it was crippled in such a way that it left debris, they could conceivably track that vector back to us.”

“And I assume the shipmaster who conducts the retrieval is paid a fee in lieu of having salvage rights?”

“Or an equivalent value in goods.” Ogweln’s smile widened. “But you are still not asking what you truly wish to ask, Colonel Murphy. Your set lips betray the deeper question behind them. Do not be oblique. You have my word; we may speak directly here. And if you ask a question I may not answer, I will say so.”

Well then, here goes. “Salvaging ships from this system is a zero-sum game; you are simply regaining what you already built. Real profit from salvage would mean you have to be salvaging Kulsian ships.

“But that has its own risks. The Kulsians keep close track of every hull that each of their three waves bring here: coursers, surveyors, and finally, the Harvester fleet itself. If a vessel goes missing, is damaged, or malfunctions, sooner or later, they’ll start a search at its last known location or along its last known vector. But if they can’t find it with medium-range radar—because they follow the same limits set by the Death Fathers—then they may look for it during the next Searing.

“So if one or two go missing? They can dismiss those as anomalies. But more than that?” Murphy shook his head. “Taking their wrecks away is ultimately almost as dangerous as leaving yours to be found, because either one shows the Kulsians they’re not alone in this system.”

Ogweln nodded. “Very well-reasoned, Colonel Murphy. So, you have deduced that the RockHounds carry out very few salvage operations.”

Murphy shook his head and smiled. “Actually, no; I think the RockHounds are always searching for more derelict hulls. And they must be unusually valuable, if they are rare and hard to find.”

“Like this one?”

Murphy shook his head as their ship bumped softly against a modular docking ring that the RockHounds had affixed to the side of the structure. “No,” he said, “I think this is something else.”

Ogweln’s smile was almost coy. “Time to find out.”


Back | Next
Framed