Heart of the Nebula (43 page)

As if to confirm that, the shower unit on
the far side of the room shut off, and a young woman stepped out.
She wrapped her hair in a towel, slipped on a thin bathrobe, and
stepped out of the stall, smiling at James as she passed by.

Over three thousand
people,
James thought to himself, blinking
in disbelief. That was almost the original size of the Colony
itself. And if every colony ship had a population that large, then
the people of this generation would easily be able to outvote his
own. Lars’s words about forming a society that would never tolerate
his leadership came back to him. Perhaps there was more truth to
that threat than he’d thought.

Chapter 22

“
Ah, Commander McCoy,” said
Captain Carlson, saluting as James stepped off of the ladder. “It’s
good to see you doing so well.”

James nodded and returned the salute,
pausing to catch his breath. His arm ached from the long climb to
the topmost level of the ship.

“
Captain Carlson,” said
James. “Deirdre’s told me about you.”

“
I’m sure she has. On
behalf of the command crew and officers of the
Chiran Spirit,
welcome back,
sir.”

James nodded his thanks, a little taken
aback at being called “sir” by a man who didn’t seem that much
older than him. Judging from his trim build and clean-shaven face,
Carlson was probably in his mid-thirties or so.

“
Deirdre told me that we’re
still three weeks from Chira V,” James said. “Why did you decide to
wake me now instead of waiting until arrival?”

“
Several reasons,” said
Carlson, leading James down the corridor toward the bridge. “Since
you’re going to take command once the other colonists are woken, we
wanted to give you time to adjust. As I’m sure you’ve noticed,
things have changed quite a bit since you went down.”

“
Yes,” James muttered.
“Definitely.”

They stepped into the lift that led to the
bridge. It was a small, cylindrical room that looked much like an
elevator chamber, except with large shoulder restraints that folded
down from the ceiling like those in a low-gravity tram. Since the
bridge faced forward, it lay perpendicular to the other decks. For
that reason, they needed a special lift to orient them correctly
relative to the artificial gravity field.

The lift itself looked much as James
remembered it, with only a few cosmetic changes to the walls and
braces. When the door hissed open and he stepped onto the bridge,
though, it seemed like a completely different place. The old,
oversized chairs were replaced with new, economical ones. Four
extra stations had been added along the edge. The walls and floor
were painted white and blue instead of dark green, and the
instrument panels looked remarkably new. It was as if James had
gone into cryo on one ship and woken up in an entirely different
one.

Only one thing seemed strange, and that was
the fact that there were no crew on duty.

“
You may have noticed a few
changes since you were last in command,” Carlson said. “With the
ship on autopilot, most of the functions are managed from control
centers located throughout the ship. But for maneuvers, we do have
stations for each post, so that the full command crew can be
present simultaneously.”

“
So most of the time, no
one’s here?” James asked.

“
That is
correct.

“
They why did you bring me
here?”

“
Because there is something
we must discuss in private, Commander McCoy,” said Carlson.
“Something pertinent to our decision to revive you three weeks
early. Please, have a seat.”

James frowned and did as Carlson instructed,
sitting down in the captain’s chair. Carlson leaned forward and hit
a number of keys on the captain’s control panel. The forward window
darkened and turned into a large holoscreen, showing a map of a
star system, with seven red points lined up along a series of
parallel trajectories, all pointing to the inner planets.

“
This is the Chira system,
with the current positions and trajectories of all seven colony
ships that set out from Zeta Nabat,” Carlson explained.
“Of—”

“
Wait a minute,” said
James. “Seven ships? I thought there were nine.”

“
Excuse me,” said Carlson,
toggling the screen. Two gray dots showed up on the far side of the
system, moving at velocities that were clearly much faster than the
other colony ships. “These two ships suffered a catastrophic
collapse of some sort and failed to decelerate for the final
approach with the rest of us. At this point, we must assume that
the ships are derelict and that all on board perished.”

“
Perished? What about the
colonists frozen in cryo?”

“
I’m sorry, Commander, but
at this point there is nothing we can do for them.”

A shiver ran down James’s spine. He imagined
those still frozen in cryo, careening through space for all of
eternity with no one to wake them. What had happened to cause this
disaster? Had the engineers been unable to make those ships
long-term livable, or had some sort of conflict torn the society
apart? “Derelict” was not a sufficient word to describe them—those
were ghost ships.

“
In any case,” Carlson
continued, “of the six remaining colony ships, we have only been in
regular contact with three.” He pointed them out and marked them in
green. They lay mostly towards the back of the line, near
the
Chiran Spirit
.

“
Only three ships?” asked
James. “What about the others?”

“
For reasons that are not
yet clear to us, they severed all contact with us.” Carlson marked
the middle point in blue. “The last one to break contact with us
was the
Good Hope
Flier.
”

“
What happened?”

Carlson sighed. “We don’t know, Commander.
But we’ve analyzed the trajectories of the three ships that refused
to communicate with us, and we’ve found that they’ve adjusted their
course away from Chira V to the innermost planet, here.”

He toggled the controls, and the
trajectories extended into full capture orbits, three of them
heading for the fifth planet in the system, and three heading for
the first planet. James clenched his fists.

“
So we have a secession
crisis.”

“
That would appear to be
the case, Commander.”

“
Why, though?” James
wondered aloud. “What would make them want to secede?”

“
You should know,
Commander, that we have been retelling the story of your exploits
at Zeta Nabat almost non-stop since you went into cryo. Almost
fifty years ago, a studio on the
Lady of
Karduna
put together a feature-length holo
depicting your heroic rescue of the kidnapped girls. It’s still our
most requested holo in the rec room.”

“
Really?”

“
Yes. However, we have
reason to believe that the other ships do not share the same view
of your accomplishments.”

James frowned. “What do you mean?”

“
One of our last
communications from the
Good Hope
Flier
included a lengthy piece from their
historian refuting our account of the rescue and naming you a
tyrant. It ignited a spirited debate and no small amount of
backlash. Shortly after that, the
Good
Hope Flier
broke off all communications
with us and the three remaining ships.”

Is that what this is
about?
James wondered.
Are people using my rescue of those girls as a pretext for
secession?

“
There’s got to be
something else,” he said. “I can’t believe this is the only reason
for the schism.”

“
Perhaps not, Commander.
But it remains a possibility.”

“
So what do you want from
me?”

Carlson took a deep breath. James sensed
that they were finally getting to the crux of the issue.

“
With our imminent arrival
at Chira,” Carlson explained, “the
Lady of
Karduna
sent out a diplomatic mission to
the
Good Hope Flier
to attempt to re-establish contact. The shuttle docked
successfully, but never returned, and we haven’t heard from the
mission since.”

“
What happened
next?”

Carlson sighed. “We’ve done everything we
can to get the mission back, all to no avail. We’ve tried pleading,
bargaining, even threatening, but nothing has worked. Frankly, some
of us were considering open warfare before we decided to hand the
situation over to you.”

“
Warfare?”

“
That’s right,
Commander.”

“
You want me to lead you in
a war against these people?”

“
Not if we can avoid it,”
Carlson said quickly. “In the face of this crisis, we felt that we
needed to turn to your leadership.”

James sighed and shook his head. “I don’t
know what to tell you, Captain. The situation sounds very tricky.
If we’re too aggressive, the rebels will hold the diplomats hostage
as long as they can, in order to use them as a bargaining chip. On
the other hand, if we’re too conciliatory, the rebels will
interpret that as a sign of weakness and walk all over us as soon
as we make planetfall. They may have given us the first
provocation, but with only three weeks left, we’re not in a
position to do anything but ride this out.”

Carlson listened intently,
a look of deep respect written across his face.
Wow,
James thought.
He thinks I actually know what the hell I’m
talking about.

“
Haven’t you thought all
this through yet?” James asked. “You’re the captain, after
all.”

“
I’ve tried, sir,” said
Carlson, “but I’m afraid I just don’t have the same breadth of
experience to draw from. Besides, in the political affairs of this
ship, I have no power. I can only follow the orders that the
General Assembly gives me.”

So Lars
did
try to make it
impossible for me to get anywhere with these
people,
” James thought to himself.
Little did he know, that was no way to kill a
legend.

“
I’ll do what I can,” James
promised. “And I’ll try to figure out a way to recover those
hostages. But I can’t promise anything until we get the rebels to
talk to us, and they’re probably not going to do that until after
they’ve landed.”

Carlson nodded. “That puts us in a very
tricky position. Hopefully, with the others rallying to your
leadership, that will be enough to avert a conflict.”

Yeah,
James thought.
Hopefully.

* * * * *

Deirdre stayed on the master computer
terminal in the library until well past the time for the
main-shifters to return to their quarters. When she made the climb
back up the ladder, she was so tired it was all she could do reach
the top. She made almost a complete circle around level sixty-two
before finally finding the right door in that unfamiliar place, and
groggily palmed it open.

To her surprise, the lights were still on
inside. James lay on the bunk, but his eyes were open, staring
listlessly at the ceiling the same way he had in the medical
bay.

“
Oh, hi,” she said,
stopping in the doorway. “I didn’t expect you to be up.”

He grunted but made no other movement. The
door hissed shut behind her, blocking out the noise in the
hallway.

“
I brought you some food,”
she said, folding out the nightstand and placing a small tray on
it. “I picked it up during dinner at the lower mess
hall.”

“
Thanks,” James mumbled. He
sighed and made as if to stand up, but kept his eyes on the
floor.

Deirdre noticed little bits of white
synthpaper scattered across the bedspread. She frowned; was that
one of her books he’d torn up? But no, her compartment was still
solidly locked. It would have had to have come from—

The envelope.

“
Oh my,” she said, eyes
widening. “Was that the letter? I hope you didn’t…”

“
What?” James asked,
looking up. She motioned to the bits of torn paper, and he glanced
over at them and back to her.

“
Was that Sara’s,
uh…”

“
Contingency letter? Stars,
no. That was mine.”

“
Ah.”

He buried his head in his hands and leaned
heavily on his knees. “I can’t believe I was such an idiot.”

Deirdre hesitated, unsure what to say. But
as his shoulders started to shudder with quiet sobs, she realized
that that didn’t matter. She sat down next to him and rubbed his
back until the moment passed.

“
We can all be idiots
sometimes,” she said softly. “I know how you feel.”

He laughed bitterly. “Oh yeah? Have you ever
lost someone only to realize how thoughtless your last words to
them really were?”

Deirdre didn’t answer.

“
Do you know what I wrote
in my contingency letter to her?” James continued.

“
No,” she whispered,
meeting his frenzied gaze.

“
Neither do I! Can you
believe it? I wrote the letter moments before I went under the ice,
and I can’t even remember what I said in it. So careless! So
stupid!”