Changing Vision (30 page)

How could I do it all, when there was only me left?

A droplet hit the back of my hand. I looked up, thinking moisture had already condensed on the cooling metal, then saw it had been a tear.

I couldn’t
, I told myself, hearing Ersh in the harsh, sensible truth of it.
I could only do my best.

Starting with haunting
The Black Watch.

KEARN stared at the message in his hands, noticing the trembling of his fingers as a distant phenomenon, unrelated to the way his breath wheezed in and out through his lips, or the way his heart was trying to pound its way into his mouth, bringing the taste of his supper with it.

“You’ve confirmed—this.”

“Yessir. It came in on a secured beam. Codes read intact.” Com-tech Resdick stood near the door, as if he’d taken a step or two in that direction while Kearn was reading. “Will there be a reply, sir?”

“No.”

“Sir?”

Kearn waved one hand irritably: “All right, then. Yes. But later. Can’t you give me a moment of peace? I have important matters to think about—I can’t waste my time talking to you.”

Resdick nodded and left.
He missed salutes
, Kearn thought.
There was something so—reassuring—about a salute.
Of course, Paul Ragem had been expert at giving the bare minimum, a subtle flick of his fingers that showed his scorn while never stepping beyond the bounds of acceptable behavior in front of others. Until
Ragem allied himself with the Esen Monster and joined her reign of terror.
Kearn pulled his thoughts to the present with an effort, not sure why he’d remembered a dead man.

The message was from the Commonwealth—the Deputy Minister of Research, in fact. It was the one
Kearn had always feared. A recall. Some trumped-together nonsense about his responsibility for Captain Lefebvre, reported attacked and now officially listed as missing on D’Dsel. As if it was Kearn’s fault the Human had chosen to desert his ship.

They were stopping his search.

When he was closer than ever?

Kearn checked the lock on his door, then pulled out the Kraal knife. With uncharacteristic force, he plunged the tip through the message and into his desk.

They’d have to catch him first.

BY the time the lights automatically dimmed in the corridors to mark shipnight, I’d made my way through six decks, terrorized over forty crew, and witnessed three unfortunate physiological reactions. Floors could be cleaned. I wasn’t exactly proud of my efforts, but they were beginning to accumulate nicely.

A particularly effective moment had been when I’d located a node in the intership com system and sang into it, making sure to break off with a suggestive sob. The next node I tried had been deactivated.
Well, if I couldn’t use it, neither could they.

The changes I’d made to the ship’s internal systems accumulated as well. The walls were damp to the touch, the air perceptibly chill, and the amount of carbon dioxide close to levels that should affect Human ability to think clearly. This last was a minor concern to me, as I felt thinking clearly was likely to matter, so I took the precaution of grabbing an emergency air supply and using it whenever I felt my respiration increasing.

It was almost time to dare the brig corridor and find Paul.

Almost.
Despite my impatience, I knew if I were to save my friend, it wouldn’t be enough to free him. I needed a way to get us off this ship and away. In entertainment vids, this was apparently a trivial task for any hero worth watching. In reality, I knew this was the most difficult task of all.

A vector-class cruiser couldn’t land on a planet’s surface. It was a distance killer, functioning as a mobile base of operations in times of war. The
Tly Defender
would have carried hundreds of shuttles and doorcrashers—the one-way stealth gliders used to deliver whatever the military wanted dropped, from biologics to Ganthor troops.
The Black Watch
, I found as I haunted the flight deck, currently carried three shuttles, one antique aircar being restored, and fourteen lifepods, the latter obviously an afterthought to ferry the skeleton crew to safety if necessary.

None of these would do. The shuttles had translight capability, but were locked into launching grids controlled from the bridge.
Somewhat ambitious for a ghost child.
The lifepods would only drift and yell for help.

I didn’t think about Paul. He would survive and wait for me to save him.
Anything else was not acceptable.

The flight deck was the largest on the ship and completely open, wrapping around the circumference of the huge ship so its edges bent downward at the limits of my field of view, perspectives marked by lines of structural pillars curving up to the shadowed ceiling. I wished for slippers—as a costume choice, bare feet were a definite detriment on the cold metal floors—but kept moving, looking for anything helpful.

Then, over the curve of the far horizon, I saw it. When I was close enough to know what I was seeing, I stood gaping at my find in disbelief.

They’d stacked the cargo stolen from traders here; crates made a wall taller than I, stretching to the limits of what I could see of the deck. A lot of it had been food, judging by the smell and long runnels of white-streaked green liquid reaching out in all directions. The crates had been tossed together, not stacked. Most of their contents had to be damaged by the treatment. There was a fortune here, treated like so much garbage.

I thought of my porcelains, indifferent or not, and was horrified at the waste.

Why?

Why steal all of this, only to destroy it? Why hide it, if destruction was the goal?

Inspector Logan.
I might have been jumping to ephemeral conclusions, but this seemed like his style—to take, because he could. To destroy, because it suited him.

I went closer, trying to see if I could identify any of the shipments. I pushed aside a pile of packing plas, seeking a label on the nearest crate. It wasn’t ours—but it was destined for Inhaven Prime.

Perhaps they all were
, I thought. This was by no means all of the shipping heading for Inhaven—but it could represent a significant amount. I couldn’t tell without going through every crate, but if the Tly—if Inspector Logan, because I couldn’t help putting him at the center of whatever plot this was—wanted to harm the Inhaven economy, there were key goods, strategic needs which could be stopped. Chase’s shipment of reduxan 630, for example. If other reduxan shipments had been intercepted by Logan, it could cripple several industries. I could replay in web-memory thousands of cultures conquered from within by such methods.

Just what I needed
, I thought with significant self-pity.
Another war to stop.

There was that nagging little detail of escape in the way.

I kept looking.

Covered shapes formed a line beyond the dumped cargo. I hurried to the nearest, believing that anything well kept in this place had to be important, and tugged the plas sheet from it with one grab.

Not all of the
Tly Defender’s
armament had been removed, as the Tly claimed. I put out my hand and touched the flat black side of a doorcrasher—the size used for troop deployment, not weapons. I took a quick count without moving. There were enough here to send down several waves—empty spaces evoking those already used.

I felt my hands begin to shake.
The Black Watch
didn’t carry enough shuttles to retrieve any number of troops.

Or was it convenient?
I thought of the Ganthor, dying
against me, his click speech warning of betrayal and abandonment.

The Tly—or more specifically Inspector Logan—were beginning to have a great deal to explain.

The minor detail of escape kept getting in the way.

Then, under a split-open bag of rancid meat, I found something that might do. I could almost guarantee Paul wouldn’t like it, but I didn’t see other choices leaping my way.

I began my preparations.

“MITCHELL.” Lefebvre stood in front of the servo door, staring across the corridor as if he could will the other to stir. “Are you asleep?”

“I wouldn’t call it sleeping,” the voice answered quietly, as if husbanding his strength. “What’s the matter? Did they decide to feed us at last?”

“Something’s up with the environmental controls.” Lefebvre sniffed again, ran his hand along a damp wall for unnecessary confirmation. He knew starships—the system wasn’t failing, it had been reset to these parameters.
Sabotage?
he wondered with a bite of hope. “Your—” he remembered the vids in time to stop and say instead: “Haven’t smelled air this foul since the bar on D’Dsel.”

“It’s an older ship. Are you sure?” This a shade too casual.
So Mitchell felt it, too.

Lefebvre nodded to himself. “Humidity’s up; temp’s below norm. Something’s not right with the oxygen/carbon dioxide balance either. Tipped. Odd combination.”

“These things happen. I’m sure they’ll fix it.”

“If they don’t get on it,” Lefebvre commented, “the crew’s likely to get a bit groggy. Might even start hallucinating.”

“Then let’s hope everyone is careful.”

Lefebvre was sure he hadn’t imagined the stress on “everyone.” Did Mitchell have a contact among the crew? Was this friend he protected with his life here?

He chewed his lip pensively, staring at the vids, then sat down on the cot.

Lefebvre knew how to wait. The only concern he had now was how soon Logan would be back for his appointment with Mitchell. How much more could Mitchell Kane’s body endure, even with the med’s help? That cough could be a sign of some internal damage they hadn’t bothered to repair. There could be more.

If Mitchell had a friend on board
, Lefebvre told himself,
that friend better hurry.

I HAD to hurry, now that I had the components of our escape ready. There was no telling what the crew was up to, but I was sure the rumors of my otherworldly presence must have spread through the officers’ deck by now. Whether they were discounted or not, there would be some action taken—a search or, better yet, a meeting. Both would keep more Tly crew occupied and out of my way.

The rumors were certainly helping among the lower ranks, as I found when I walked into the secondary chartroom.
Or it could have been the air.

“The Child! The Child!” gibbered the poor Human who’d been cleaning the floor, before dropping in a dead faint.

He landed in a contorted heap, gasping for breath. The muscles of my Human-self were woefully inadequate when it came to trying to rearrange his bulk into something more comfortable. Finally, I tucked some dry cleaning rags under his head and hoped for the best.

The chartroom, memory suggested, should have access to internal records. I examined several comp boards before locating the right one, making myself move with care.
The last time I’d rushed had resulted in dents.
This time, the consequences of a mistake were doubtless more permanent.

Anything detailed would likely be encrypted, if only to some officer’s ident. What I sought should be more accessible—
aha!
I cued the internal power schematics to show the outer decks. As I’d suspected, most were on minimal, perhaps sealed as well. The greatest usages were clustered
on the officers’ deck, the bridge, a few connecting corridors, and one section of the brig.

And the closest med room to that section.

I cleared the display, keeping myself focused on my task. I called up the vid displays, hoping for something useful. The machine requested my ident, flashing a threatening red bar across its screen as I hesitated. Immediately I canceled, hoping I’d been fast enough.

Time to leave
, I decided. I didn’t know if the Tly were sufficiently gullible to believe in ghosts who tried to access their security comps, but I wasn’t planning to chance it.

Not when I had to make my way through almost one quarter of this ship to reach Paul.

THE scoring from the blister stick on his palms was almost gone. Lefebvre turned his hands over, flexing the fingers, involuntarily clenching them into tight fists on his knees. Otherwise, he was motionless, breathing in short, hard pants, muscles locked until they threatened to spasm.

This
, he did for Mitchell, and for himself. He sat, making no move, no sound of his own, doing nothing to give them reason to stun him into blissful insensibility. He listened to the torment of a friend, making the only offering he could—he stayed.

There were never understandable words. The inspector’s voice was too soft, too high-pitched to carry across the corridor. Mitchell’s wordless voice not only carried, it echoed—it must have been audible throughout the deck and, by rights, should have penetrated the hull—a desperate yet proud incoherence Lefebvre judged the bravest thing he’d ever heard.

Then, nothing. Lefebvre opened his fists, unsurprised that he’d driven bloody holes into the palms with his fingernails. He held his breath.

The silence was shattered by the thudding of booted feet, moving rapidly. Lefebvre lunged up and hurried to the servo door, craning to see. A body on a grav sled sped by, heading toward the med room, surrounded by guards and followed by Inspector Logan. Logan paused in front of the opening to look down at Lefebvre.

Lefebvre couldn’t help himself. He spat, watching the
liquid flash to steam as it was intercepted by the servo door’s automatics. “You won’t get away with this, Logan! You hear me? If you’ve killed him, I’ll make sure you pay!”

“Do you enjoy irony, my good Captain Lefebvre?” the giant Human said mildly, as though they engaged in polite, dinner conversation. “I don’t, as a rule. It so rarely lives up to its potential. But in your case?” Logan’s lips thinned in a satisfied smile. “The irony is so rich, it’s almost—painful. Sleep well.”

“What about—?” Lefebvre couldn’t finish. He sagged, every muscle burning.