Death of a Starship (19 page)

“
I know, I know.”
Albrecht could see where sitting on something like this would give
a man a case of the gray gumps. “Ship types are sort of a hobby of
mine. The dictators were decommissioned for a lot of reasons, cost
not the least of them, but sheer disarmament was a big one too.
There’s no one to fight but each other, why make it too easy? I get
it. But what does this have to do with
me
?”

Dillon’s face darkened. “There’s
some who want to bring her into a yard. Do some work on her.
‘Insurance,’ they call it.”

“
Who’s got a shipyard big enough
for that monster?”

“
Us. God help us, we built one
that big, just in case.”

Albrecht slapped the table,
propelling himself upward. Why had he thought for a moment that
these folk might have a better future in mind, with their sweaty
kids and crowded station? They were as violent and venal as anyone
else, parking death and destruction out in the Deep Dark to await
another day. “You people are idiots.”

Dillon tugged Albrecht back
down. “We’re
human
, Ser Albrecht. We disagree with one another. We make choices.
We make mistakes. We learn.”

“
And now you want to learn how to
get rid of it.” The light bloomed in Albrecht’s thoughts. “You want
me to find it, do something, so you don’t have to go through a
Naval Oversight investigation into why you’ve been hiding a
battleship all these decades.” His voice pitched up. “So I can
patsy it into the open, turn the thing over to Lieutenant Bourne or
those Church goons who are chasing me. Then somebody bigger and
badder shows up, sweeps the mess under the rug, and goes away. That
works for you, doesn’t it? Otherwise that damned ship gets found
some other way, sooner or later. Then everybody’s staring at the
belters of The Necklace, asking what the hell your plans were
anyway!”

“
Yes,” said
Dillon simply. “I’m sorry, but that’s all true. We need you to help
us lose it into plain sight. You followed me down here, through the
core of Shorty’s Surprise. You’ve seen our people. Our
children
. We’ve created
too much here in the last century to trip over an old idea about
mounting some pointless rebellion.”

That was certainly true.
“
Then who built the damned
shipyard!?”

“
People with other ideas, Ser
Albrecht. People with other ideas.”

“
You know,” Albrecht began
quietly. He stopped, sipped from his sugar water. “All I ever
wanted was get out of here.”

“
You’re far too late to avoid
taking some kind of fall. Everyone in the system knows your name,
the Navy and the Church are both after you, and the Imperial
Resident’s in line behind them waiting for his turn. We’re just
asking that you steer that fall to land somewhere that doesn’t
point right back toward us. And take that battleship with you on
the way.”

“
Yeah, well.” He
was back to having no future at all. He
had
been a dead main sailing, these
last few days. “I guess that means I need to find my way out
there.”

“
Soon, Ser Albrecht. You must
leave before the superior firepower arrives.”

“
Am I on my own?”

“
No.” Dillon smiled. “We’ll take
my rock hopper. And I think we’ll have a third set of hands
along.”

Some of his anger bled away at the
thought of Dillon coming along. Albrecht didn’t know the monstrous
man, not in any way that made sense, but if Dillon were coming, he
meant what he was saying.

Trust had been a rare
commodity in Albrecht’s life of late, ever since his abrupt
departure from
Princess
Janivera
. But there was something in Dillon
that he wanted to trust. “Fine. I need some data off
Jenny’s Little Pearl
. I
locked the systems from the console. We have to go back on board so
I can override.”
And
Christ
, he thought,
that damned newt was still out there.

“
Are you willing to pass the
boat’s codes to me? I have people who might be able to hack that
out while we’re preparing. If not, well, we start our journey
there.”

Albrecht sighed. He popped
the codelock key out of his thigh pack. “Here you go. It’s
bearer-driven, no biometrics or encoding. They didn’t want
complications, when they set this up.
Idiots
.”

“
Humans.”

“
Whatever. I’d like that back, in
working order please.”

“
Certainly.” Dillon grabbed one
edge of the table, preparing to shove off. “I’ll be back shortly.
This is as safe as anywhere on Shorty’s Surprise for you right now.
Stay here. Anyone comes to see you, they’ve been
cleared.”

“
Whatever.”

Dillon launched himself across a
chord of the arc of the dodecahedron, heading for the hatch to the
chaos outside. Albrecht nursed his sugar water and tried to figure
out if he had any path through this that didn’t end
badly.

Hell, he’d been living on
borrowed time since
Novy Petrograd
showed up. He was
days
ahead at this point. And maybe
there was still hope after all.

‡

Some time later, after Albrecht had
given in to something distilled and far too high proof for his own
good, a near-twin of Dillon, but with drifting red hair – a clone
clutch, like he’d first thought? – popped through the bar’s hatch
towing a stubby, stocky priest dressed in a helmetless skinsuit.
The newcomer looked something between angry and frightened. The
Dillon-clone pointed Albrecht out to the priest, gave the short man
a good hard toss, and dropped back through the hatch.

To Albrecht’s surprise, the priest
managed his way through the arc without spinning out of control,
and hooked into the table unassisted.

“
Father,” Albrecht said
neutrally.

“
It’s Chor Episcopos, actually,”
the priest snapped. “The reverend Chor Episcopos Jonah
Menard.”

Of course. “You’ve been looking for
me, I believe.”

Menard’s face opened. “Ah.
Please forgive my surliness. The past hours have not been easy,
even for a forgiving heart. You are Micah Albrecht? Of
Jenny’s Diamond Bright
?”

“
Not exactly, but close. The same
man you laid a Writ of Attainder on. Your Reverence.”

“
It kept you
alive,” Menard pointed out. “I wasn’t ready to lose you to
Novy Petrograd
.”

“
Who am I to you? Why’d they dump
you on me? Or vice-versa.”

“
Why’d they put
us together? Maybe because I didn’t try to kill anyone on arrival.”
The priest gripped the table, his knuckles pale. “As to who you
are...you’re the man who knows about
Jenny
D
. Are you going out to the ship? They said
I was to go with you.”

Albrecht had to laugh. He had
no idea the Church had an angle on insurance fraud. Or conspiracy
to rebellion, whichever this really was. “Oh no, it’s much worse
than that, Chor Episcopos. I thought I knew where
Jenny D
was, but we seem
to have hooked a far bigger fish here.”

“
I’m hunting the biggest fish of
all, Ser Albrecht.”

“
I doubt it. I’ve seen this fish,
and with all respect, Your Reverence, I don’t think it’s what you
are looking for.”

“
What have you seen, my
son?”

“
Ah...” Albrecht closed his eyes a
moment. This place, he’d seen this place. The distances a man could
pass in moments, after standing still for most of a lifetime. “The
past. The future. I’m not sure, truthfully. If you’re coming with
me, you’ll find out soon enough. If you’re not coming with me, it
doesn’t matter anyway.”

Menard frowned. He’d obviously
played this game before. “I seem to be missing my angel. I cannot
abandon a servant of the Patriarch.”

“
Your...angel?”

“
My, ah, enforcer. Sword and hand
of the Lord. It has been injured.”

“
I don’t know about any angels,
Chor Episcopos, but this will probably be worth the ride.” Albrecht
took a deep breath, then: “I hope to God it is.” For the sake of a
lot of people.

“
Strangely, so do I.”

‡

Menard: Halfsummer Solar Space,
The Necklace, Shorty’s Surprise

Micah Albrecht wasn’t what he’d
expected. For one, the man seemed almost depressingly normal.
Menard had spent his career among the highly driven, and
occasionally the highly desperate. He’d assumed Albrecht was one or
both of those, simply based on the situation here in
Halfsummer.

No, Ser Albrecht could have been an
average parishioner in an average community anywhere in the Empire.
Of middling height, ordinary looks, nothing exceptional about him
at all.

Except for the facts of the
situation, of course, and that Albrecht had hooked a big fish of
some kind.

Menard wondered if he was close to
a breakthrough on the Xenic Question. To what degree were they
really among the human race? Was Albrecht involved with xenics?
Sister Pelias’ K-M curves had led Menard here to Halfsummer,
further into the question than he’d ever been able to go
before.

But as always, he wondered who was
playing whom.

Albrecht had gone silent, sullen,
unwilling to divulge more about whatever his end of the secret was.
Having come this far, Menard was willing to be patient.

He worried about the angel, though,
with a rippling sense of guilt. Bishop Russe had charged him with
the creature, and the angel with him. Would Captain Yee and her
creature have killed Menard out of hand if the angel hadn’t been
there? It had moved first, but for a reason....what?

Ser Albrecht certainly wouldn’t
know that. Who would? Angels didn’t, well...talk.

He needed to know why the angel had
attacked. And whether it could continue onward with him.
Unfortunately for Menard, he was the leading authority on angels in
localspace. No one else could help him.

Oh, Lord
, prayed Menard silently,
Your humble
servant begs Your guidance in this hour of my need. I am troubled
by the fate of Your angel, and my duty tells me to stay by it and
seek to heal it. At the same time my heart tells me I must follow
the path of this Micah Albrecht, as he may lead me toward my life’s
work. I do not know whether You have set the xenics in the path of
man as a steppingstone or a stumbling block, but I know You will
reveal Your will to me when the time is right. But in this moment,
oh my Creator, Your will is not clear. What path shall I choose?
Please, Lord, I beg of You a sign.

Glory to the Father, and to the
Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages.
Amen.

He looked up to see Albrecht
staring at him. “I’m a priest, my son,” Menard said gently. “I
pray. It’s what we do.”

“
Does God answer?”

“
Generally, yes, if I have but the
wisdom to hear it.”

A near-twin of the red-headed
woman, but male and bald, took that moment to pop through the hatch
and propel himself across the bar straight toward them, two helmets
dangling from one hand. “Now would be an excellent time to leave,
gentlemen,” he said in a gear-crushing voice as he tossed them both
their headgear.

“
Nice to see you, too, Dillon,”
said Albrecht. “Have you met Chor Episcopos Menard?”

Dillon nodded briefly, agitated.
The man was sweating, even, which was odd in the perpetually chill
environment of a station. “I know who he is. Ser Albrecht, there’s
been an internal disagreement here on Shorty’s Surprise. I have
lost the codelock key. Irretrievable. We should exit quickly,
before we become irretrievably lost as well.”

And here
, thought Menard with a surge of guilty relief with respect to
the fate of the angel,
is God’s sign.
Thank you, Lord. Forgive me my ill feelings toward Your fellow
servant.
But the Captain and her bione were
under his protection. “I cannot go–” he began, when he was
interrupted.

“
Did you get the damned
ephemeris?” Albrecht snapped, his face flushing with anger. Or was
it fear?

Dillon looked back and forth
at the two of them. “No time to argue. We’ve got the data, the key
is gone from us.” The big man coiled to spring back toward the
hatch. “
Now
,
Albrecht.”

“
Coming, Chor Episcopos?” Albrecht
asked.

“
I do not have a choice.” Crossing
himself, Menard launched after the other two men in an eddy of
their fear-scent and anger. He needed to follow this lead to xenics
even more than he needed to maintain his “prisoners.” From whom he
had been separated.