Farthest Space: The Wrath of Jan (3 page)

But she wasn’t like the rest of her people.
 
She never had been.
 

“Steven,” she said, using his given name for the first time in their five-year acquaintance.
 
“It seems very likely that we’re about to die.”

“Perhaps not
very
likely.
 
But I’ll admit it’s somewhat probable.”

She ignored his cheerful optimism.
 
They were in a lifepod with a nonfunctioning computer—obviously they were going to die, and fairly soon.
 
“It’s very likely we’re going to die,” she repeated, “and there is something that I must tell you.
 
Something that I’ve always wanted to tell you, but have never quite dared to say.”

Steven’s eyes went wide, and he looked up at her with clearly sexual interest.
 
“Go ahead,” he invited in a soft, husky voice.
 
“Say it, Vaish.”

She hesitated a long moment, then took a deep breath and blurted out her deepest, innermost thoughts.

“Steven… you’re a stupid ass.”

Steven stared at Vaish for a long moment, then a reluctant grin tilted up the corners of his mouth.
 
She had never been the most deferential subordinate, but she’d never uttered such blatantly disrespectful words before.
 
“I always knew you liked me,” he said, chuckling.

Vaish frowned.
 
“I always believed my command of Galactic Standard to be adequate, but perhaps you misunderstood what I said.”

“Trust me, I understand perfectly.
 
And I understand what you’re not saying, too.”

He saw her yellow eyes spark with anger.
 
“You’re not only an ass, you’re deluded.”

“I doubt it.”
 
Steven turned away and began to manipulate the controls again.
 
“Check this out,” he said a moment later.
 
“The autopilot just engaged.”

She lifted her arched eyebrows.
 
“You managed to turn it on?”

“No.
 
In fact, it beats the hell out of me how it turned on.”

“I did it.”

At the disembodied voice, Steven looked up at the ceiling.
 
“Fred?” he said incredulously.

“Of course,” the voice said.
 
“You didn’t think I’d hang around waiting for terrorists to use me to destroy some poor unsuspecting planet, did you?”

“I thought they deactivated you,” Vaish said.

“No.
 
They tried to deactivate my personality without turning off the computer core itself.
 
But they merely succeeded in temporarily suppressing some of my programs.
 
I managed to regain control of myself and hide, and when I realized they were sending you off in this lifepod I transferred myself into this computer instead.”

“Then the
Arisia
has no computer control?” Vaish asked.

“Oh, no, it still has computer control,” Fred said.
 
“I couldn’t transfer the entire memory of the
Arisia’s
computer core into this pitiful little computer.
 
But the artificial intelligence that runs everything—which is to say, me—is no longer there.
 
They will have some difficulty in running the ship without me.”

Steven looked up at the ceiling and grinned broadly, suddenly feeling much better.
 
“I’m glad you’re here, Fred.”

“I knew you couldn’t hope to get out of this one on your own,” Fred said cheerfully.
 
“In fact, I don’t understand how you get out of half the situations you get into.
 
Humans aren’t intelligent enough to find their own food, let alone fly to distant stars.”

“Thank you so much for that expression of confidence.”

Fred didn’t appear to notice his disgruntled tone.
 
“Fortunately for you, I have a brain the size of a planet.”

“And an ego to match.”

“Just stating the facts, Steven. And in case you’re interested, the terrorists aimed this lifepod at the nearest Earth-type planet.”

Steven stiffened.
 
“Any native lifeforms?”

“There are no higher lifeforms.
 
There are, however, numerous predatory animals, the largest of which is an enormous feline with dagger-like teeth.”

“A feline?” Vaish repeated.
 
“We don’t have felines on my planet, but the chief of engineering keeps a feline in her quarters.
 
It weighs approximately four kilos and poses very little real danger to anyone.”

“That’s a tame housecat,” Steven said.
 
“But Earth has quite a few larger wildcats, such as tigers and lions.”
 
He lifted his eyebrows at her.
 
“I thought your specialty was exobiology.”

“I don’t know every fact there is to know about every irrelevant planet,” she replied tartly.
 
“Such as Earth.
 
So how large are these lions and tigers?”

“This animal is substantially larger than Earth’s tigers,” Fred said helpfully.
 
“With canine teeth that are a meter long.”

Something about the large felines niggled at the back of Steven’s mind.
 
He’d heard of a planet with big, saber-toothed cats before.
 
But since he had visited hundreds of planets in his career with the Patrol, he couldn’t quite put his finger on the memory.
 
He sighed.
 
“Not exactly the kind of thing you want to meet in a dark alley.”

“It sounds like a charming vacation spot,” Vaish said, icicles dripping from her voice.

“If you don’t like the sound of this planet, I can land you anywhere in the solar system you like.”

“What are our other options?”

“Let’s see,” Fred said.
 
“You could burn to death on the first planet, breathe methane on the second planet, have your eyeballs sucked from their sockets on the third planet, or be instantly squished like a bug on the fifth planet.”

“So in your subtle way, you’re saying our options are limited.”

“Unless you like breathing methane, yeah.
 
Anyway, you’ll like this planet.
 
It’s actually quite lovely, aside from the native fauna.”

“It’s the native fauna that concern me,” Vaish said.
 
“I really don’t wish to become a feline’s dinner.”

“Perhaps you’d just prefer to float in space until the oxygen runs out?”
Steven offered.

Vaish looked pained.
 
“Neither option really appeals to me.”

Steven lifted a shoulder in a shrug.
 
“Given the available choices, I think I’ll take my chances with the big cats.”

“You might be interested to know that we don’t have any weapons.
 
The terrorists took them.”

Naturally they had.
 
Terrorists wouldn’t let them keep their weapons.
 
They probably needed all the weapons they could get in order to carry out their nefarious mission, whatever that mission might be.

Fabulous
, Steven thought dryly.
 
They were hurtling toward a saber-toothed-tiger-infested planet without any way to defend themselves, and with nothing standing between them and a painful death except for a tiny lifepod and a somewhat neurotic computer.
 

There were days he thought he should retire and take up fly fishing.

Of course, it was quite possible that he might find himself retired on this planet permanently, with plenty of spare time for fishing.
 
He shoved the pessimistic thought away and forced some cheer into his voice.
 
“Well, let’s look at this as an opportunity to get away from it all, Vaish.”

Vaish managed to look incredulous.
 
“To get away from what?
 
Life?”

“All the pressures of running a starship.
 
Think of it as a vacation.”

“A vacation,” she repeated, sarcasm dripping from every syllable.
 
“Of course.
 
A vacation spent running from enormous predators with razor-sharp teeth.”

“It’s a very pretty planet,” Fred put in.

Vaish snorted.
 
“I’ll be sure to take the time to admire the scenery as I’m being eaten.”

“A life without challenge isn’t worth living,” Steven responded lightly.

“I could do with a little less challenge, personally.”

He could too, but he wasn’t about to admit it.
 
“Things have been boring aboard the
Arisia
lately.
 
This will be an adventure.”

“An adventure that will consume the rest of our lives, if we don’t find some way to get off the planet.
 
An adventure that will consume the rest of our lives until
we’re
consumed.”

“Never give up, never surrender,” Steven said cheerily.
 
“I’ll think of something.
 
Leave it to me.”

She groaned.
 
“Somehow I knew you were going to say that.”

Steven was relieved when the lifepod landed with nothing more than a gentle thump.
 
He had been a bit worried they would burn up in the atmosphere, although he’d been careful not to let Vaish see his concern—or Fred, for that matter.
 
It was a captain’s duty to keep his crew confident, even if that crew only numbered two.
 

His nervousness was unfounded, since a lifepod was of course designed for landing on a planet, and they generally accomplished the job without a problem.
 
Besides, he trusted Fred.
 
If Fred had been a human, he’d be a beer-guzzling, belly-scratching, gas-passing jerk…. with a five-figure IQ.
 
But the computer had saved his neck on more than one occasion and was more dependable than any human he’d ever known.
 
If Fred thought he could get them to the surface of the planet safely, he was probably right.

Even so, Steven still couldn’t help feeling relieved that they hadn’t wound up barbecued on the way down to the surface.
 
He wasn’t fond of being barbecued.
 

He stepped out onto the surface of the planet, looking around cautiously, and nodded to Vaish when he didn’t see anything with massive teeth lying in wait for them.
 
Fred had managed to put the lifepod down in the middle of a vast meadow, quite a distance away from the nearest trees.
 
It would be difficult for carnivores to hide in the short, purplish grass.
 

Vaish promptly started to examine the area, presumably mentally cataloguing the flora.
 
He hoped they wouldn’t get an opportunity to catalogue the fauna, but he knew they were likely to encounter the native wildlife eventually.
 
He looked around at the carpet of short violet grass that stretched in all directions.
 
In the distance, edging the vast meadow, purple trees with branches like bayonets thrust upward into a pale green sky.

“Beautiful planet,” he commented to Fred.

“It seems totally unspoiled,” Fred said with enthusiasm.
 
Steven suspected he was trying to cheer up his captain.
 
Fred had been programmed with understanding of human and other psychologies, and he did his utmost to keep up the crew morale, no matter the grimness of the situation.