The Outback Stars (29 page)

Jodenny stared at the symbol. She and Myell hadn't been the first to travel through a Sphere, but they'd been damn close.

“Where exactly did Mary Dory see it?”

“The diary didn't say. And by the time the graduate student went looking, the old lady had disappeared. No one knows what happened to her.”

“Can I access the thesis and diaries?” Jodenny asked.

Ng shook his head. “No, just abstracts and some sample pages. I doubt the diaries were ever archived in their entirety, and if so they wouldn't be included in the standard Team Space databases. But when we get to Warramala I can check in some civilian libraries there.”

Jodenny stared at the pie-shaped symbol. An old woman, a bottle of booze, a mysterious trip. “Can I get you to test some soil samples? From the bottom of some boots.”

Ng stared at her. “Whose boots? Soil from where?”

“Don't ask. I just want to see if there's anything unusual. Any unidentified plants or minerals.”

“You won't even tell me who saw these symbols, and when, and where—don't you understand? If you can step through a Sphere and wind up somewhere else, maybe that has something to do with what happened to the
Yangtze.
”

“How could it?” Jodenny demanded.

Ng waved his hands in irritation. “I don't know. I can't know, until I get more facts. And you're the one who's got data she won't share. Do I think the Spheres can magically transport anyone? No. Not based on what we know right now about them.”

“But you think they could make a starship explode,” Jodenny said.

They stared at each other for a moment.

Jodenny broke the silence. “Please test the boots. If there's nothing unusual on them, there's nothing to talk about. When we get to Warramala we can check the libraries, and go from there.”

Ng didn't look happy about it, but he didn't fight her, either. Jodenny left the Space Sciences labs with images of runes in her head. On the Flats she saw Olsson waiting for a lift. He stabbed the call button when he saw her, a guilty expression on his face.

“AT Olsson,” she said. “I've been trying to reach you.”

“Yes, ma'am,” he said, and darted a nervous look around.

“You haven't answered my imail.” Jodenny had only sent the imail because AM Dyatt had begged her to, and his failure to respond was annoying.

“Sorry, ma'am.” The lift doors opened, and Olsson hurried inside. “I can't talk. I'm late to watch.”

He was probably lying, but she let him go anyway. She turned away from the lift and saw RT Bartis gazing at her from the corner of the Supply Officer's suite. He blinked at her and turned away, and she went back to her office thinking only of Ng and Wondjina runes.

*   *   *

Chang wanted off that night's midwatch and offered seventy yuros for anyone to take it. Myell swapped for free. Walking cold decks during the wee hours was preferable to being chased by Daris through nightmares. At midnight he reported to the watch office, where thirty other men and women were donning belts and other gear.

“Remind me why robots can't do this shit,” AT Hull said from behind him.

“Because Team Space needs to keep you busy somehow, bucky,” someone else replied.

Myell turned around. “Because robots can tell when a sensor is triggered, but they can't tell from a sailor's expression if he's up to no good.”

Hull shrugged. “I guess.”

Interesting duty was patrolling the Rocks, where there was plenty of opportunity to meet women. Shitty duty was the underdeck crew bars, off-limits to civilians, where off-duty sailors drank and brawled. Myell and Hull pulled rotation on E- and F-Decks, which would be mostly quiet. Hull hated working in Ops and wouldn't stop complaining about it.

“Twice last week Chief came to work pissed,” Hull said. “Lieutenant saw it but didn't do anything. Why don't we all throw back a dozen pints before coming to work? What's the point if no one cares? Might as well sit around all day cruising message boards rather than actually try to get anything done.”

They got off the lift at F-Deck and started down the passage. The officers' gym was open twenty-four hours a day, but no one was inside.

“—so then she told him she'd sleep with him if he changed the roster, and he did, then he finds out she gave him herpes—”

The hydroponics lab was shut down and the door lock said it was secure. Myell double-checked by turning the knob and scanned the lock with his gib.

“—he would have gotten kicked out too, but the Sweet test came back borderline and they gave him a third chance—”

The ship's training library was used for night classes conducted by live instructors. Locked. The post office handled packages, handmail, and imail. Locked. While Hull droned on about his division, Myell went through the entire checklist and stopped only when he saw a light on in Space Sciences.

“Everything okay, Dr. Ng?” he asked the scientist sitting in his office.

Ng shielded his deskgib as if protecting some highly classified secret. “Yes, Sergeant. Thank you.”

Myell and Hull went upladder to E-Deck. The AT started another long sob story and Myell interrupted him to ask, “If you're so miserable, why don't you ask for a transfer?”

Hull grimaced. “One department's the same as the other, right? Hey, let's get some coffee.”

“Your job is checking hatches and keeping an eye out, not getting coffee.”

“I'll get coffee, you check the hatches.” Hull headed for the nearest vending machines.

Myell tried one of the back doors to the E-Deck gym. Unlocked. The passage led to maintenance rooms for the swimming pool, saunas, and steam rooms. A few meters down the passage he found a door clumsily propped open with a towel. He eased into the men's locker room. White tiles gleamed underneath his boots, and the smell of soap hung heavy in the warm, moist air.

He heard something odd—a squeak, then a thud. He stopped, afraid that the Rainbow Serpent and the Wirrinun were about to put in a special waking appearance. But the next thud sounded too prosaic to be of supernatural origin. He rounded the corner to where Engel had Olsson pinned against a row of lockers. Spallone stood a meter or so away, vicious glee on his face. Olsson was naked and wet, blood staining the corner of his mouth.

“Let him go,” Myell ordered.

Spallone barely glanced at him. “Fuck you, Myell. Turn and walk away.”

“Don't leave!” Olsson pleaded, and Engel shook him.

“Shut the fuck up,” Engel said.

Myell put a hand on his radio. “Back off now, the two of you, or we can talk about it with the duty officer.”

Engel glanced over his shoulder at Spallone. Myell kept his expression stony. He predicted Spallone rushing him a second before Spallone tried it. He caught him by the arm, twisted the arm behind his back, and shoved him up against the wall. Spallone cursed and spat, but Myell leveraged his arm until it was close to breaking.

“You want more, swipe?” Myell asked.

Spallone didn't stop struggling. “You and me, Myell. You and me.”

“Anytime, shithead.”

Hull piped up from the doorway, where he was observing them all. “Coffee, anyone? Scalding hot, poured over your head? Who wants it?”

Myell said, “Engel, let him go.”

Engel reluctantly backed off from Olsson, who slid to the floor with a thump and sat there with his hand pressed against his jaw. Spallone grumbled and swore some more but finally calmed down enough that Myell released him.

“Are we reporting this, Sergeant?” Hull asked.

“No, you're not,” Spallone said.

Hull grimaced. “Not the sergeant I meant. Sergeant Myell?”

From the floor, Olsson said, “I won't testify.”

“None of us will.” Spallone's eyes were on Myell only. “Leave it alone or pay the consequences. It'll be our word against yours, and you know how that always goes.”

Myell did know. “Your word means shit. Get the fuck out of here.”

Spallone smirked. “Keep your eyes at the back of your head,” he said, and he and Engel walked away and out the back door.

Olsson pulled himself up to the bench. “Shit.”

“You all right?” Myell asked.

“Yeah.” Olsson grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his hips, but didn't seem inclined to say more.

Hull was watching the door worriedly. “We're really not reporting this? Just let them get away with it?”

“Give us a minute,” Myell said to Hull. When they were alone Myell said, “You're going to tell Security what happened. You've got two witnesses to back you up.”

Olsson's tone was tight. “Leave it, Myell, before someone gets hurt in a bad way.”

“That'll be you, next time they get you alone in a corner.” Myell didn't like Olsson, but he wasn't going to be responsible for anything happening to him. “If you care for Dyatt, if that kid's yours, you need to take care of things before you get yourself hurt or killed.”

Olsson put his hands over his face. “No one can help with this.”

“Is it about the dingo that was stolen?”

Silence.

“I know something's going on,” Myell said. “You don't have to go along with them. You could ask for a transfer—”

“Myell, leave it alone.” Olsson stood and started pulling his clothes from a locker. “You're the last fucking person I'm going to talk to.”

Myell said, “Then at least talk to Chaplain Mow.”

“What the hell can a chaplain do?”

“Get you reassigned, like Dyatt. Maybe more, depending. We can go right now. She won't mind.”

Olsson shut the locker door and leaned his head against it. For a moment all he did was breathe noisily through his mouth. Then he said, “I'll go on my own.”

“Trust me,” Myell said. “Walking around alone isn't what you want to be doing right now.”

*   *   *

Sanchez had qualified, Gunther was close to taking his oral exams, Hultz had passed her written tests, and Ysten was almost done with his qualifications. Jodenny scheduled herself for a bridge training watch and made sure that it was during a shift when Osherman would be off duty. The Officer of the Day was Lieutenant Hamied, a severe-looking woman with tight, worn features. Once Hamied took turnover and made sure they were sailing smoothly along the Alcheringa, she asked, “What's the normal output range of the power plants while in port?”

“Two hundred fifty to three-fifty Hawkings,” Jodenny said.

“Under what conditions can the Officer of the Day authorize a search warrant?”

“Only if the CO and XO are incapacitated and all legal requirements as outlined in TSINST 5367 are met.”

Hamied asked, “When do you notify the captain of an injury or illness among the crew?”

“Good question,” said Chief Roush, the Assistant Officer of the Watch. He draped himself over the nearest railing. “Who can say, these days?”

“Was there a problem?” Jodenny asked.

Hamied allowed, “A little one.”

Roush stroked his jaw. “There was an accident back on Kookaburra and the duty officer didn't tell him right away. Hell to pay for that, you can be sure.”

“Lieutenant Commander Greiger?” Jodenny asked. “That accident?”

Roush said, “I hear it took the local police a while to find him, and they didn't know he was Team Space right away. Even after it was reported, Lieutenant Anzo didn't say boo to the captain until the morning.”

Hamied reached for Jodenny's gib. “Let's see your qualification list, see what we can sign off.”

They went through two dozen questions, easy stuff mostly. Then Jodenny took her place on the podium and settled in to watch the evening's proceedings. From the bridge, the city was a metropolis that included power grids, telecommunications, water treatment plants, air scrubbers, traffic jams, law enforcement problems, and medical emergencies. On any given night, the crew of five thousand sailors and a civilian population twice that size could get into considerable trouble, but for the first hour Hamied's only concerns were a brief power outage on D-Deck and a report of a stolen gib on G-Deck.

Two hours into the watch, a Security report came in of two do-wops fighting on the Rocks over a Sweet deal gone bad. The senior Security officer on duty had them arrested and taken to the civvie jail in T1, where they would face a magistrate in the morning. Shortly thereafter someone suffered a cardiac emergency in T14, the prison colony. They had their own doctors and security guards to respond to that. Around midnight a radiation alarm went off in T3; the manifest showed there was some radioactive materials stored on level fourteen, and a team of rad techs responded.

“False alarm,” came the report, twenty minutes later.

The rest of the watch was routine. Around oh-four-hundred Jodenny found herself yawning uncontrollably. She walked around, drank a large cup of coffee, and leaned backward, stretching her spine. At the crest of the bridge dome was a wooden carving of a gum tree. Every Team Space ship had some kind of totem like that, in honor of Jackie MacBride and her crew. This tree, with its maze of spindly branches and green leaves, had a snake entwined around its trunk. A snake that wound around and around, and bit its own tail.

“Something interesting up there, Lieutenant?” Chief Roush asked.

Jodenny rubbed her arms against a sudden chill. “Not so much.”

They turned the watch over at oh-six-hundred and Jodenny was back in her cabin twenty minutes later. She splashed her face with cold water and changed uniforms. After quarters she would check in at the office and return for some much-needed sleep. On impulse she had Holland call up the logs and reports about Greiger's accident. A flit, a country road, neither alcohol nor drugs believed to be contributing factors—maybe Greiger was just a lousy driver.

“Was there ever a follow-up report from Kookaburra about Lieutenant Commander Greiger's medical status?” she asked.