Law's End (20 page)
Authors: Glenn Douglass
Tags: #adventure, #travel, #dog, #future, #space, #rescue, #supercluster
"Wait," Greene began in her most annoyed tone,
"this thing can respond to voice commands? So what was all that
teaching me the controls nonsense?"
"It killed some time." Kassad held up one
finger importantly. "There's nothing like a petty frustrating
annoyance to take your mind off of all the serious things bothering
you that you can't do anything about."
Grumpily Greene replied, "Petty frustrating
annoyances. I think that's the real reason that ships have
captains."
Truth was that Kassad didn't often use Sabha's
voice circuits. When he had in the past he always found himself
tweaking and adjusting the voice to get it to sound more like the
voice he'd imagined for Sabha in his head the first time he'd seen
her. After endless adjustments to pitch and tone he would
inevitably switch it back to the default and then turn it off
altogether. Kassad didn't need the software generated voice to hear
Sabha speak.
"We've made it pretty far without them
detecting us." Kassad noted.
Still annoyed Greene speculated bitterly,
"Maybe they're just lining up a clean shot."
"I'd like to think they'll do the courtesy of
demanding we surrender first." Kassad said a little more hopefully
than he wished. "It would at least make the transcript of the
confrontation a bit more legal."
Again they were quiet for a while. Each was
lost in the thoughts of where they were and what they were doing.
Each of their thoughts straying to where they weren't and what they
would rather be doing. It was thinking that tended to drive in
circles of doubt and certainty.
Eventually Greene determined to break the
silence. "I think we'll go visit old Terra." She said, "Since we'll
be in the old Milky Way and we haven't had a vacation in forever."
Another thought suddenly occurred to her along with unused vacation
time. "Assuming we still have jobs to vacation from. It'll be nice
to visit our species' cradle."
Immediately Kassad was opposed to the idea.
"Don't bother, if you want to see where we got our start go to one
of the first colonies. I went to old Terra back before I started
University and calling it a tourist trap would be too generous.
There's nothing there except historical recreation sites dotted
amongst vicious petty tribal, ethnic, and fanatical religious hold
outs that haven't changed in… ever. Bad food, ugly people,
dilapidated buildings, and an entire economy built around sucking
money out of tourists."
Greene knew that at least in part Kassad's
response was just an expression of frustration at the situation
they found themselves in. "You don't have anything nice to say
about anything do you?"
With a shrug Kassad replied, "I said to visit
one of the early colonies. They genuinely love their history, they
love sharing it with outsiders, and they've more of it preserved
than old Terra ever did. The people are open, pleasant, forward
looking, and they won't behead you for some minor breech of
etiquette."
Determinedly optimistic Greene searched for a
reason so support her almost random choice of destinations. "I’d
like to see the pyramids."
With a sad smirk Kassad remembered his own
disappointing visit to the monuments and explained, "They eroded
down to nubs long before the locals finally got around to enclosing
them for protection. These days you can only look at the once Great
through an inch thick sheet of diamond while standing on a conveyor
belt designed to move as many people through the experience as
possible." Kassad complained. "Go to one of the original colony
worlds. You'll hear about how their ancestors fled the barbarism of
the homeworld to build something new; be part of a greater
community. You'll see the actual preserved towns where they
started, learn about the problems they overcame, and be overwhelmed
by their accomplishments. It's an uplifting experience."
Unconvinced Greene inquired, "Nothing good to
say about the homeworld?"
There was a long pause as Kassad thought
through his visit long ago and past its disappointments. "There are
places that are very pretty; mostly parkland. It's where we were
evolved to live, and it feels like it when you walk around. Close
your eyes and being on the homeworld feels like a freshly tailored
suit; it just feels right." It was an inadequate explanation even
for Kassad who had never pretended to be a poet. "But then open
your eyes and you see that it's still a cradle. The people who
stayed behind are those still small enough to fit in it. If you're
anything like me when you leave you'll make a too generous donation
for whatever colonial ventures are trying to build support."
Hauling out the argument ender Greene
countered, "It'll be nicer than Lawless space."
Trumped Kassad could only concede, "I can't
argue that." After a moment he added, "I imagine the Law's End
bureau of tourism doesn't get many inquiries."
"I have a few complaints for them." Greene
agreed and both of them laughed quietly at the idea through their
shared pain.
Seeming to chime in on the sentiment Canis
exploded into loud barking then bounded out of the cockpit. Through
the laughter and tunnel vision Greene noted that Canis moved with
practiced grace, leaping from one bulkhead in a slight turn that
imparted just enough spin to line himself up for the next leap
along the path. It made Greene wondered if Canis had lived his
whole life in the variable reality of space.
Before Greene could make an inquiry about
Canis' history an alarm blared into life as Sabha's electronic
voice announced, "Pressure hull integrity compromised, crew area,
automatic sealing in progress." prompting both Greene and Kassad to
don their helmets.
Chapter 14: "Under Fire"
"Frankly I think you well-dwellers are just
delusional. Radiation, pressure, and gravity form the triad of
spacer fears, but those are just as relevant to you down the well
as us. Plus you have to worry about atmospheric and geologic
catastrophes as well. No thank you. I can tell you in all honesty
that I've never had to deal with a tornado or volcano on any ship
I've ever crewed."
-Excerpt from interview with veteran spacer
Gilles Montague.
Kassad ordered Sabha, "Divert all internal atmosphere to storage
tanks." His hands fumbled across the console to locate the manual
environmental controls and work them by memory.
There was no sense in letting any of whatever
atmosphere they still carried spill out into space. Worse there was
the reality that the pressure of the escaping atmosphere would
likely make the breech larger. Explosive decompression was a very
real threat to spacecraft hulls if not to terrestrial
organisms.
Double checking the seals on her helmet by hand
in spite of the indicator lights Greene demanded, "I thought you
said we'd have more time? How could they have found us this
quickly?"
Actually it wouldn't have surprised Kassad if
they'd been spotted immediately after their stellar gambit, but he
wasn't about to say so. "The breech may not be from weapons fire.
We're traveling at a pretty good clip and anything we hit is going
to leave a scratch or dent… or a hole." The idea of what the high
speed transit was doing to his beloved ship was a painful one to
acknowledge. "Eventually something was going to poke through. I'm
expecting Sabha's pressure hull will have to be resurfaced when
we're back to civilization one way or another."
Canis bounded back into the cockpit clad in his
own pressure suit barked seriously and then bounded out again
causing Kassad to smile beneath the obscuring mask of his pressure
helmet and comment that, "The Damage Control Officer has the
situation in hand."
Allowing herself a small smile of relief Greene
asked, "How will we know? How will we know it was just a collision
and not an attack?"
"Are sensors showing any ionization?" Kassad
asked eagerly pointing almost randomly to the wireframe display.
"Generally weapon fire is powerful enough to leave a detectable
trail in the trace gases of space." Kassad explained and as Greene
scanned the information presented through her increasingly narrow
vision Kassad quipped, "Although I guess we'll know for certain if
we start taking more hits."
Squinting at the display through one eye and
then the other in a vain effort to get a better view Greene
reported, "I don't see anything."
In confusion Kassad asked, "You can't see, or
there's nothing on the display?"
Canting her head from side to side Greene
replied, "I can see… barely, but I'm not seeing what you're
describing."
For a moment Kassad struggled to find the words
to describe what he expected to see. "It will look like a faint
line of dots intersecting our course in the upper right hand corner
navigation track display."
Moving her face as close to the display as
possible given her seat's restraints Greene said, "I'm not seeing
anything like that."
"Okay, it was just debris then."
"Okay." Greene breathed a sigh of relief as she
collapsed back into her chair which gripped at her by design
keeping her from simply bouncing back out due to inertia.
Hesitating only for a moment before revealing
his concerns to his passenger Kassad said, "Still this is going to
make it a lot easier for them to find us."
With a groan of exasperation at their unending
streak of bad luck Greene grumbled, "What? Why?"
"We're leaving a trail of vented atmosphere.
It's not quite like sending up a flare, but it makes for a bigger
target."
"So what does that mean? How much time do we
have?"
"I don't know." Kassad admitted and then asked.
"How much time until we cross the barrier?"
"Um," Greene squinted at the display with its
tiny numbers and symbols so distant in the narrow view her eyes
provided, "I think it says one hour and thirty seven minutes."
Running the numbers and odds in his head Kassad
concluded, "We might need to make a run for it."
"Have I mentioned that I hate the uncertainty
of space travel?"
Ignoring the comment either because it wasn't
constructive or because he couldn't hear it Kassad continued, "Of
course that depends on where they are relative to us." After a
moment's thought the obvious information his exhausted mind had
missed came to him and Kassad inquired, "Is their identification
code showing up on the navigation track? It'll be a blue triangle,
except not blue because… you know."
Another bout of squinting at the display had
Greene leaning forward in hopes of a better view. "No
triangles."
"So either they turned it off, which isn't
technically illegal, or they left." Kassad knew from long
experience that a disabled navigation beacon was enough to get you
inspected, fined in some polities, but generally wouldn't result in
the loss of one's ship.
Greene was momentarily hopeful if confused.
"They left?"
"I don't think they left. They certainly didn't
sound like they were leaving last time we spoke."
Setting aside the irrelevant data Kassad had
imparted and trying not to let her frustration build into rage
Greene prompted Kassad, "So then they turned it off. Why would they
do that?"
Not sure if he wanted to play 'guess what the
crazy Lawship captain is thinking' Kassad suggested, "They must
have done it when we entered the corona. Might be they're trying to
spook us into giving up our position."
None of it made much sense to Greene but she
was determined to understand the situation and not simply be a
passive observer in it. "What about Sabha's navigation identifier?
Why can't they find us with that?"
For a moment the thought of Sabha's navigation
ID made Kassad start as he wondered if he'd actually disabled it
given that it was an activity he did so often it had required
almost no thought, then he remembered, "Oh, I set that to shut off
when we passed into the corona, and I know it did because we're
still alive."
Sourly Greene observed, "Unless another stray
bit of stellar debris hits us."
Kassad responded dismissively with a clumsy
wave of his hand saying, "Well that's always a possibility no
matter what you do out in big vacuum."
******
Armhamon's sensor operator announced
professionally, "I've got a promising sensor return." his predatory
zeal having diminished under pressure from his captain's
threats.
Slouched with her legs kicked up over one of
her command chair's armrests the captain of the Armhamon responded
grouchily, "What is it?"
Unaccustomed to standing long watches on the
bridge Captain Andrews was too anxious to conclude the hunt to
leave her command chair. Boredom she relieved by verbally berating
the bridge watch standers for minor failings real and imagined.
Stress she relieved by picking at the command chair's armrest
padding until a sizable hole had been worried into existence.
"this thing can respond to voice commands? So what was all that
teaching me the controls nonsense?"
"It killed some time." Kassad held up one
finger importantly. "There's nothing like a petty frustrating
annoyance to take your mind off of all the serious things bothering
you that you can't do anything about."
Grumpily Greene replied, "Petty frustrating
annoyances. I think that's the real reason that ships have
captains."
Truth was that Kassad didn't often use Sabha's
voice circuits. When he had in the past he always found himself
tweaking and adjusting the voice to get it to sound more like the
voice he'd imagined for Sabha in his head the first time he'd seen
her. After endless adjustments to pitch and tone he would
inevitably switch it back to the default and then turn it off
altogether. Kassad didn't need the software generated voice to hear
Sabha speak.
"We've made it pretty far without them
detecting us." Kassad noted.
Still annoyed Greene speculated bitterly,
"Maybe they're just lining up a clean shot."
"I'd like to think they'll do the courtesy of
demanding we surrender first." Kassad said a little more hopefully
than he wished. "It would at least make the transcript of the
confrontation a bit more legal."
Again they were quiet for a while. Each was
lost in the thoughts of where they were and what they were doing.
Each of their thoughts straying to where they weren't and what they
would rather be doing. It was thinking that tended to drive in
circles of doubt and certainty.
Eventually Greene determined to break the
silence. "I think we'll go visit old Terra." She said, "Since we'll
be in the old Milky Way and we haven't had a vacation in forever."
Another thought suddenly occurred to her along with unused vacation
time. "Assuming we still have jobs to vacation from. It'll be nice
to visit our species' cradle."
Immediately Kassad was opposed to the idea.
"Don't bother, if you want to see where we got our start go to one
of the first colonies. I went to old Terra back before I started
University and calling it a tourist trap would be too generous.
There's nothing there except historical recreation sites dotted
amongst vicious petty tribal, ethnic, and fanatical religious hold
outs that haven't changed in… ever. Bad food, ugly people,
dilapidated buildings, and an entire economy built around sucking
money out of tourists."
Greene knew that at least in part Kassad's
response was just an expression of frustration at the situation
they found themselves in. "You don't have anything nice to say
about anything do you?"
With a shrug Kassad replied, "I said to visit
one of the early colonies. They genuinely love their history, they
love sharing it with outsiders, and they've more of it preserved
than old Terra ever did. The people are open, pleasant, forward
looking, and they won't behead you for some minor breech of
etiquette."
Determinedly optimistic Greene searched for a
reason so support her almost random choice of destinations. "I’d
like to see the pyramids."
With a sad smirk Kassad remembered his own
disappointing visit to the monuments and explained, "They eroded
down to nubs long before the locals finally got around to enclosing
them for protection. These days you can only look at the once Great
through an inch thick sheet of diamond while standing on a conveyor
belt designed to move as many people through the experience as
possible." Kassad complained. "Go to one of the original colony
worlds. You'll hear about how their ancestors fled the barbarism of
the homeworld to build something new; be part of a greater
community. You'll see the actual preserved towns where they
started, learn about the problems they overcame, and be overwhelmed
by their accomplishments. It's an uplifting experience."
Unconvinced Greene inquired, "Nothing good to
say about the homeworld?"
There was a long pause as Kassad thought
through his visit long ago and past its disappointments. "There are
places that are very pretty; mostly parkland. It's where we were
evolved to live, and it feels like it when you walk around. Close
your eyes and being on the homeworld feels like a freshly tailored
suit; it just feels right." It was an inadequate explanation even
for Kassad who had never pretended to be a poet. "But then open
your eyes and you see that it's still a cradle. The people who
stayed behind are those still small enough to fit in it. If you're
anything like me when you leave you'll make a too generous donation
for whatever colonial ventures are trying to build support."
Hauling out the argument ender Greene
countered, "It'll be nicer than Lawless space."
Trumped Kassad could only concede, "I can't
argue that." After a moment he added, "I imagine the Law's End
bureau of tourism doesn't get many inquiries."
"I have a few complaints for them." Greene
agreed and both of them laughed quietly at the idea through their
shared pain.
Seeming to chime in on the sentiment Canis
exploded into loud barking then bounded out of the cockpit. Through
the laughter and tunnel vision Greene noted that Canis moved with
practiced grace, leaping from one bulkhead in a slight turn that
imparted just enough spin to line himself up for the next leap
along the path. It made Greene wondered if Canis had lived his
whole life in the variable reality of space.
Before Greene could make an inquiry about
Canis' history an alarm blared into life as Sabha's electronic
voice announced, "Pressure hull integrity compromised, crew area,
automatic sealing in progress." prompting both Greene and Kassad to
don their helmets.
Chapter 14: "Under Fire"
"Frankly I think you well-dwellers are just
delusional. Radiation, pressure, and gravity form the triad of
spacer fears, but those are just as relevant to you down the well
as us. Plus you have to worry about atmospheric and geologic
catastrophes as well. No thank you. I can tell you in all honesty
that I've never had to deal with a tornado or volcano on any ship
I've ever crewed."
-Excerpt from interview with veteran spacer
Gilles Montague.
Kassad ordered Sabha, "Divert all internal atmosphere to storage
tanks." His hands fumbled across the console to locate the manual
environmental controls and work them by memory.
There was no sense in letting any of whatever
atmosphere they still carried spill out into space. Worse there was
the reality that the pressure of the escaping atmosphere would
likely make the breech larger. Explosive decompression was a very
real threat to spacecraft hulls if not to terrestrial
organisms.
Double checking the seals on her helmet by hand
in spite of the indicator lights Greene demanded, "I thought you
said we'd have more time? How could they have found us this
quickly?"
Actually it wouldn't have surprised Kassad if
they'd been spotted immediately after their stellar gambit, but he
wasn't about to say so. "The breech may not be from weapons fire.
We're traveling at a pretty good clip and anything we hit is going
to leave a scratch or dent… or a hole." The idea of what the high
speed transit was doing to his beloved ship was a painful one to
acknowledge. "Eventually something was going to poke through. I'm
expecting Sabha's pressure hull will have to be resurfaced when
we're back to civilization one way or another."
Canis bounded back into the cockpit clad in his
own pressure suit barked seriously and then bounded out again
causing Kassad to smile beneath the obscuring mask of his pressure
helmet and comment that, "The Damage Control Officer has the
situation in hand."
Allowing herself a small smile of relief Greene
asked, "How will we know? How will we know it was just a collision
and not an attack?"
"Are sensors showing any ionization?" Kassad
asked eagerly pointing almost randomly to the wireframe display.
"Generally weapon fire is powerful enough to leave a detectable
trail in the trace gases of space." Kassad explained and as Greene
scanned the information presented through her increasingly narrow
vision Kassad quipped, "Although I guess we'll know for certain if
we start taking more hits."
Squinting at the display through one eye and
then the other in a vain effort to get a better view Greene
reported, "I don't see anything."
In confusion Kassad asked, "You can't see, or
there's nothing on the display?"
Canting her head from side to side Greene
replied, "I can see… barely, but I'm not seeing what you're
describing."
For a moment Kassad struggled to find the words
to describe what he expected to see. "It will look like a faint
line of dots intersecting our course in the upper right hand corner
navigation track display."
Moving her face as close to the display as
possible given her seat's restraints Greene said, "I'm not seeing
anything like that."
"Okay, it was just debris then."
"Okay." Greene breathed a sigh of relief as she
collapsed back into her chair which gripped at her by design
keeping her from simply bouncing back out due to inertia.
Hesitating only for a moment before revealing
his concerns to his passenger Kassad said, "Still this is going to
make it a lot easier for them to find us."
With a groan of exasperation at their unending
streak of bad luck Greene grumbled, "What? Why?"
"We're leaving a trail of vented atmosphere.
It's not quite like sending up a flare, but it makes for a bigger
target."
"So what does that mean? How much time do we
have?"
"I don't know." Kassad admitted and then asked.
"How much time until we cross the barrier?"
"Um," Greene squinted at the display with its
tiny numbers and symbols so distant in the narrow view her eyes
provided, "I think it says one hour and thirty seven minutes."
Running the numbers and odds in his head Kassad
concluded, "We might need to make a run for it."
"Have I mentioned that I hate the uncertainty
of space travel?"
Ignoring the comment either because it wasn't
constructive or because he couldn't hear it Kassad continued, "Of
course that depends on where they are relative to us." After a
moment's thought the obvious information his exhausted mind had
missed came to him and Kassad inquired, "Is their identification
code showing up on the navigation track? It'll be a blue triangle,
except not blue because… you know."
Another bout of squinting at the display had
Greene leaning forward in hopes of a better view. "No
triangles."
"So either they turned it off, which isn't
technically illegal, or they left." Kassad knew from long
experience that a disabled navigation beacon was enough to get you
inspected, fined in some polities, but generally wouldn't result in
the loss of one's ship.
Greene was momentarily hopeful if confused.
"They left?"
"I don't think they left. They certainly didn't
sound like they were leaving last time we spoke."
Setting aside the irrelevant data Kassad had
imparted and trying not to let her frustration build into rage
Greene prompted Kassad, "So then they turned it off. Why would they
do that?"
Not sure if he wanted to play 'guess what the
crazy Lawship captain is thinking' Kassad suggested, "They must
have done it when we entered the corona. Might be they're trying to
spook us into giving up our position."
None of it made much sense to Greene but she
was determined to understand the situation and not simply be a
passive observer in it. "What about Sabha's navigation identifier?
Why can't they find us with that?"
For a moment the thought of Sabha's navigation
ID made Kassad start as he wondered if he'd actually disabled it
given that it was an activity he did so often it had required
almost no thought, then he remembered, "Oh, I set that to shut off
when we passed into the corona, and I know it did because we're
still alive."
Sourly Greene observed, "Unless another stray
bit of stellar debris hits us."
Kassad responded dismissively with a clumsy
wave of his hand saying, "Well that's always a possibility no
matter what you do out in big vacuum."
******
Armhamon's sensor operator announced
professionally, "I've got a promising sensor return." his predatory
zeal having diminished under pressure from his captain's
threats.
Slouched with her legs kicked up over one of
her command chair's armrests the captain of the Armhamon responded
grouchily, "What is it?"
Unaccustomed to standing long watches on the
bridge Captain Andrews was too anxious to conclude the hunt to
leave her command chair. Boredom she relieved by verbally berating
the bridge watch standers for minor failings real and imagined.
Stress she relieved by picking at the command chair's armrest
padding until a sizable hole had been worried into existence.
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