Keystones: Tau Prime (6 page)

“Well, for one thing I watched her, but for another here’s some footage.” Cheshire flicked a few icons on his wrist Uplink, a model similar to Deklan’s.

Glancing at his Uplink, Deklan felt the hairs on his neck stand on end. The information was coming in through his Secure Identity. How did Cheshire have access to his Secure Identity? Of lesser concern was the file itself, a second-long video. “What the hell is this video, and how do you have my Secure Identity?” challenged an irate Deklan. “Who are you?”

“You need to play the video slowly.” Cheshire winked at him, smiled infuriatingly, and vanished.

Deklan scowled before turning his attention back to the video he’d been sent. Even when he played it at extremely low speeds, there wasn’t much to see. The footage of a bolt of light streaking through the wormhole’s mouth didn’t prove anything, he told himself. Susan was fine. She just wasn’t taking his calls.

He maintained this logical inference for at least three more seconds before inputting commands to call up a list of casualties from the previous day’s breaches. There it was: three survivors and one missing person, Susan Anthony. She was the only person whose body had not been found.

Cheshire therefore might have told the truth. Susan could have gone into the wormhole. But why? And what could Deklan do about it?

His Uplink pinged again. Another file coming through, a much larger video file several minutes long. Deklan’s finger hovered over the screen. His unanswered calls and Cheshire’s last video had awakened doubt and fear. He didn’t want to open this new file; he didn’t want confirmation.

Deklan bit his lip and tapped the screen.

Susan burst into life on his wrist. She was leaning against a pole on a train, her posture betraying both exhaustion and satisfaction after a long day of work. Deklan took in the rest of her surroundings, including the tunnel flashing by in the window behind her. Everything looked normal and harmless. He’d taken trains like that five times since reaching the Terra Rings. Then came the red lights, however. They blinked the universal signal for warning. A voice came over the train’s speakers: “Habitat breach! Extreme caution advised! Habitat breach! Extreme caution advis. . . .” The speakers went dead.

Susan’s reaction was immediate. She reached for her Uplink, a small and sleek tablet model, and pressed its surface with increasing intensity to no effect. Around her in the car there spread an air of panic. All electronic devices had died.

For a moment Deklan wondered how there could be a recorded video if everything else nearby had died, but the playback pulled him back into the images.

The maglev train canted forward at a crazy angle and slammed into the ground. The car’s front section tore into the metal below, while the aft section spun up like a pendulum, tearing through the steel ceiling above the train as though it were the softest of paper. Only an instant before impact with the ceiling, Susan’s body reacted.

The timer in the bottom right of the screen slowed, showing the passage of time now in hundredths of a second.

Deklan watched the transformation ripple through Susan’s body. A flame-like tongue of light appeared on her forehead and spread through her body and clothes. Instead of ash what it left behind was her new body composed entirely of light.

He then saw her lose momentum and cease her forward motion. Walls caught up to her as she was pushed along by the tumbling train. Bodies careened into walls around her. Susan curled into a defensive ball, but Deklan could see that she weathered the storm of damage without injury as the train bent and tore around her. Sounds of rending metal screeched at Deklan from the video.

The train next surged upwards, hitting something with violent force. Susan’s body configuration shifted as she uncurled and flew to the center of the moving carriage, hovering in the center of the chaos. Her face no longer held terror but instead a serene look of dispassionate interest. There was no disdain but no compassion either. With one final crash the train came to a stop.

Susan was the only survivor in a cabin littered with broken bodies. Ignoring them, she flew over to a cracked window and pushed herself through the glass. For a second she did nothing. Then she left the wreckage of the train behind and headed down the track to the next station. Her speed made the sides of the tunnel appear to be nothing more than a blur.

Susan didn’t pause at the next station, which was closed, but darted further down the tunnel. Moving lights ahead indicated an undamaged maglev train. Susan slowed and matched her velocity with the train’s before she pushed through the rear window.

Again Deklan wondered how the footage had been acquired. Cheshire’s resources were alarming.

Once inside the train Susan bolted through the crowds of people, flying over or under them when they wouldn’t leap out of the way of her glowing form. Fifteen carriages later Susan pushed her way out of the train and flashed down the tunnel, leaving it far behind.

Moments later she flew into the next station. The video feed angled upward and centered on the roof, an enormous window to space. Susan darted to the glass and slipped through it.

The screen’s display showed a total elapsed time of less than five seconds.

Deklan finished watching the video of Susan’s accident and frowned. She apparently was okay, and Cheshire seemed to have told the truth about her entering the wormhole. If he were going to help her, he would have to follow Susan there. He’d let Tommy down, but maybe he could help another friend. He just needed to find a way to do so.

A new message came through on his Uplink. It was a job offer. The timing was convenient, perhaps too convenient, but it was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up. Deklan read it again to make sure that he understood its contents, then smiled to himself. The old adage “Be careful what you wish for” was indeed accurate. He put in a call to his mother.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Deklan, we still haven’t sorted things out regarding that redwood. I think it’s definitely mine.” His mother sounded worried. She’d been distracted yesterday by all of the plants that she’d grown, but today it seemed that the redwood issue was weighing on her again.

Deklan noticed that the room behind his mother looked like a jungle of tomato vines. “Yes,” he replied, “that’s very possible, but I was calling because I’m going to an interview.”

Tricia rolled her eyes. “Someone needs a stuntman on the Rings?”

He kept his tone neutral. “No. Actually, they’re looking for a lawyer.”

His mother’s face brightened. “That’s fantastic! I’ve always wanted you to go back to using your law degree. Where will you be working?”

“
Serenity
.”

“That sounds more like a yoga retreat than a legal firm. Does this have something to do with personal-relief forms?”

“No, it’s actually a ship, recently purchased by Calm, for private exploration of the wormhole network. I’d be joining it as a crew member.” The name didn’t feel real coming out of his mouth. Calm was the nearest thing to a modern-day legend. He’d been a Keystone before The Sweep, renowned for his ability to negate any and all forces within about seven meters of his body.

Tricia fainted at the news, and her husband looked askance at his son. “Why are you doing this? And when would you be leaving if you took the job?” Brice asked.

“According to the offer we’d be leaving within an hour of my acceptance.”

Brice failed to look any happier at this update. “And what am I supposed to tell your mother?”

Deklan signed off from the call, packed his meager possessions in a shoulder bag, and headed to the
Serenity
. He wanted the job, and he wanted the chance it represented. He wouldn’t be withholding important information from anyone; he wouldn’t be failing a friend; he wouldn’t be neglecting a responsibility. He would be mapping the wormhole network.

Deklan’s thoughts were interrupted by his first sighting of the
Serenity
. She was a large vessel for a private craft, resembling a mechanical hybrid of a shark and a hawk. Sharply swept aerodynamic features made it appear on initial inspection that the craft was capable of atmospheric flight. Rear-mounted fusion thrusters didn’t discourage that impression.

The hangar in which she sat was open to space. One had to either walk through a docking airlock or wear an EVA suit to get to her. Deklan stopped to look at what he hoped would be his new home for at least a while. Having lost his apartment on Earth, and believing that he’d never see his parents’ house again, he craved the idea of a long-term residence, even a roving residence in a ship.

A retina scan at the entrance of the airlock walkway identified him as Deklan Tobin and cycled open the door. After he stepped through with his bag, it shut behind him. He was now on the end of a mobile airlock that moved toward
Serenity
itself. As the craft loomed closer, Deklan was better able to take in its physical appearance. At a distance the ship appeared to be a matte black color, but on a closer view grey tones were evident, an indication that she hadn’t yet seen much use. Ships were darkened by the bombardment of ionic particles and radiation in space, as he’d learned from any number of documentaries, and the absence of such darkening suggested that this was a maiden voyage.

Although unfamiliar with anything more than the basics of spaceships, Deklan still could see that she was an all-purpose ship. She even had a wheel for artificial gravity generation in the event that they weren’t using the Doppler Bubble Drive. It was the sort of ship that he had seen on a screen but never expected to set foot aboard.

With a gentle tap the airlock connected to the ship and cycled air into the dead space between the airlock and the ship’s door. Smiling, Deklan crossed from the approach walkway into the ship’s airlock. It closed behind him before opening the second door into the ship.

The ship even smelled new, and some fixtures were still sheathed in plastic. “Welcome aboard,” came a voice over the com system. “You can find me on the bridge.” The voice was polite without being overly friendly.

Deklan shrugged, dropped his bag, and synced his Uplink with the ship to find schematics and a path to the bridge. His eyebrows popped at some of the highlights: two rejuvenation tanks complemented a high-end medical bay, crew quarters for ten, an impressive galley, and a repair bay for two shuttles that themselves were capable of atmospheric flight, with enough cargo space to go prospecting.

He proceeded slowly to the bridge, taking in the ship’s features. He was about to meet and work with Calm, the most famous Keystone alive. Calm whose Keystone ability was the selective negation all forces within a small bubble of protection that radiated out from his body.

Deklan looked at his left hand where three of his fingers had grown back. He was a Keystone now too. Somehow meeting Calm, one of the original Keystones, drove that point home more than any of the tests he’d undergone in Boa Vista.

Deklan entered the bridge, which had ten seats, each with large displays, and a single massive viewport to space. Adding to the atmosphere of exclusivity was the celebrity pilot. Despite the job offer, despite the voice when he came aboard, seeing him was another thing entirely.

Calm swiveled in his chair and spoke in the same voice that Deklan had heard over the intercom. “Does she meet with your expectations?” he asked.

It was a welcoming question that asked for his opinion. Deklan felt more at ease about what would come next. “Yes,” he replied, “but are you planning on more crew members?”

“No, but you can’t find ships this size and with the amenities I wanted without at least this much space dedicated to living quarters. With you here I have all the crew I need.”

“All the crew you need?” asked a surprised Deklan.

“Indeed, a captain, doctor, lawyer, and”—a smile ghosted over Calm’s lips—“survival expert.”

It seemed odd that Calm wanted a lawyer on the crew. Deklan would have wanted an engineer. “Who are the other crew,” he asked, “and what do you mean by a survival expert?”

“Dr. Beal will minister to the injured aboard
Serenity
. It was she who recommended you for the position. She described you as ‘a lawyer who isn’t useless.’” Calm smile. “It seemed like tall praise from her. As for our survival expert, Mr. Day has the interesting ability to spray an unlimited quantity of a variety of liquids from his palms, including, but not limited to, beer and water.” Deklan wondered how Jamie Beal had known that he was a lawyer. “In effect, Mr. Tobin, we have provisions for a flight of indefinite duration.”

That revelation would have been a great deal more surprising had Deklan not witnessed his father’s producing Twix bars at every turn. “What about repairs?” he asked.

Calm responded with a shrug. “Any repairs serious enough to require an engineer will mandate return to a shipyard. Anything else can be repaired by a layman following instructions from the diagnostics stations.”

Deklan repressed a frown at the response. Calm’s casual attitude toward problems was world-famous, and he knew that any argument would meet with failure and might cost him the job. Instead, he nodded and said, “The job offer didn’t explain what your goal was beyond exploring the wormhole network.” Deklan wanted to find Susan. He couldn’t do it on his own, but exploring the wormhole wouldn’t be a bad beginning.

Calm pulled up an image of the pulsing wormhole on the mammoth screen below the main viewport. “I want to explore, and I need people who want to explore as well. Before The Sweep I’d been to every region in space where people had decided to build a home.” As Calm turned away from the display, his intense voice and gaze held Deklan’s attention. “I’d thought that I’d seen every frontier, seen all that there was to see. Now it can be new all over again.” His voice didn’t grow louder but conveyed excitement and wonder. He sounded like a man who had been given a second chance.

Deklan didn’t know how to respond to the speech. He’d been a stuntman for the excitement and the fun. There was a chance that on some level he and Calm were alike. That spoke well for his spending time on board
Serenity
.