Mallow (45 page)

That was a great, perfect moment.

Everything about Miocene's long ambitious life pointed at that epiphany. Her duty was obvious. Indeed, it seemed as if every hardship and wrenching pain were nothing but the careful preparation of her soul, making her ready for what was, for lack of any better word, her destiny.

'Both of us are Builders reborn,'
Till had purred.

'We are,' she had mouthed, beaming at her only child.

To Miocene, the Builders were an abstraction. An idea with which she could coexist. No, she didn't believe that their souls were billions of years old. But clearly, they were the natural ones to take control over this great, wondrous machine. She looked at the hardened souls at this long table. Waywards; Loyalists. She imagined the millions of children born before, then after the merging of those two nations. And there were the captains who had proved themselves during this century-long march toward this moment. Now . . .

Till asked, 'May I stand now, madam, and have a word?'

Miocene nodded, then gladly sat in the Master's oversized chair, letting every eye focus on him.

For the next few minutes, her son spoke about duty. About the importance of these next days and weeks. He repeated what his mother had already stated emphatically, that it was crucial for the ship's burn to be made on schedule. They needed to prove to the passengers and to the galaxy that the ship was in proficient hands.

It was her speech, and it wasn't.

As always, Miocene noticed how the faces seemed to drink in her son's words. Again, she could appreciate why he was able to find followers and motivate them. Even old men like Twist and Daen would nod appreciatively, their fealty having shifted — in some abstract, convoluted fashion - a
little
closer to the Waywards.

Then she wasn't thinking about Till, her eyes focusing on a new captain who had just entered the conference room, bowing at his superiors and taking one of the two empty chairs at the far end of the table.

Till concluded by saying, 'Welcome, Virtue.'

The one-time traitor from the Wayward camp managed a deeper bow, then said,'My apologies. There was a problem—'

'With the spine, again?'

Asked Till.

'With its borehole, specifically. Sir. Madam. The old hyperfiber has been putting up a tenacious fight.' Gray-white eyes blinked as if embarrassed, then stared at Virtue's own hands. 'Within the week, I can assure you, madam
...
you will be able to rule the ship from anywhere, including Marrow . .
.'

At this moment, they were nothing more than a boarding party. A few million highly motivated, thoroughly trained, and well-armed people living far from home.

'When the spine is finished, integration of command functions won't take long,' he promised. 'Another day, or two. Or perhaps three.'

Till glanced at his mother. For both of them, he said, 'Thank you, Virtue.'

Miocene barely noticed the exchange. What she was studying was the final empty chair, feeling that instinctive disquiet. When she listened again and heard nothing but patient silence, she leaned forward across the pearlwood table and said, 'Locke.'

She asked, 'Has anyone heard from him?'

No one responded.

But ever so slightl
y, Till's ex
pression tightened. And he quietl
y admitted, 'No, there hasn't been any news.'

In the mutiny's opening moments, without warning, Locke had disappeared. It was commonly known but never discussed. The other captains and generals pretended to busy themselves with details while Miocene whispered to her son,
'Do you still think that he's off chasing his mother's soul?'

'Of course,' Till replied.

What was she hearing in his voice?

'I know the man,' he continued. 'He very much loved Washen, even though he didn't see her for centuries at a time—'

It was a love that Miocene could appreciate.

'And the poor man was wracked by guilt. For what happened, for what he had to do
...
it was very difficult for him . . .'

Locke killed his own father, trying to save his mother. Yet Washen had died regardless. The two Waywards had seen her body torn apart by explosives. Shredded flesh and the dying mind were scattered across a great ocean of liquid fuel, and lost. Every report in the Master's files
documented a long, fruitl
ess search. A solitary Wayward had no chance of finding her. None. Miocene felt certain, yet she had to ask, 'Did you send anyone to search the leech habitat? As I suggested?'

'Naturally,'
Till replied.

'And what did they find?'

'It was sealed, but there were signs of a struggle,' he admitted, shaking his head with a sudden heaviness. 'It's possible, just possible, that Locke stumbled into an armed guard. The evidence is narrow, but reasonable. There was a fight, and he was killed with his own weapon.'

She waited for a moment, then asked pointedly, 'Why didn't you tell me this?'

Till blinked. He sighed. Then with a peculiar sadness, he replied, 'It didn't feel like critical news.'

'If Locke's been captured—'

'Mother,' he growled. 'Locke is not a danger. You know that.'

She sat upright in the Master's chair, staring at that pretty face with all of the coldness that she could summon.

'He knows nothing,' her son insisted. 'His place at this table is honorary. Nothing else. For a long time, I haven't given him any authority. Because, as I promised, I know him so very well.'

Do you? she thought, in secret.

Then her coldness turned inward, and she shivered in invisible ways. After a long moment, she remarked, 'You might wish to search the fuel tank itself.' 'We already have,'Till replied.

Something about his eyes were flat. Unreadable. Even dead.

'That tank is huge,' Miocene reminded him.

'Which is why it took until today to finish our search.' The unreadable eyes wore a smile, and a smiling mouth added, 'I sent ten swarms to search—'

Ten swarms pulled from what duties?

'And all that they found were aerogel barges. Scientific instruments packed for shipment. And nothing alive or even a little bit important.'

'You're certain?' she asked.

Till calmly stepped into her trap, telling her,'Yes, madam. I am quite sure.'

With a harsh, loud voice, Miocene cried out,
'But you've missed important things in the past. Haven't you, First Chair? Haven't you?'

Her son stiffened.

The room fell silent, waiting.

Till forced himself to relax. Then quietly and angrily, he said, 'Locke is useless.'

Ten swarms were an enormous number of soldiers, particularly if you were chasing someone who was useless.

But Till just kept shaking his head, telling everyone at the long pearlwood table,
'Even if he wanted, he couldn't hur
t us
.'

Thirty-eight

'Don't worry. It's
just my hand.' The pressure was soft, soothing. 'Keep still now, dear. Still.' Who was moving?

The voice said a familiar name, and with the hand pressing, it complained, 'She's fighting. Me, or something else.'
The voice is talking about me.

Another voice, deeper and more distant, said, 'Washen.' Said, 'Just he still. Washen. Please.'

Then a larger hand tried to smother her, pressing over her mouth and nostrils, and the deep voice drifted closer, familiarly intimate, telling her, 'We don't have much time. We're sprinting you through this regrowth.'

Regrowth?

'Sleep,' he advised, his hand lifting.

The woman's voice said, 'I think she is.'

But Washen was only keeping her eyes closed, feigning sleep, savoring the constant white pain of her new body's birth.

Fresh eyes opened.
Blinked.

A piercing green light was eclipsed by a man's silhouetted face, and Washen heard her own voice asking,
'Pamir? Is that you?'

'No, Mother,' he replied.

Flinching, she asked, 'This is Marrow? Are we back?' Locke said nothing. 'Pamir!' she cried out.

'Your friend isn't here now,' said another voice. It was the same voice as before — feminine, and soft-spoken. 'He left for a little while,' the woman promised. 'How do you feel, darling?'

She moved her head, and her neck burst into flames. 'Slow, dear. Slow'

Washen breathed deeply and found herself staring at a lovely human woman dressed in an em
erald sarong. Black hair. Full li
ps. Smiling, and shy. She wasn't a Wayward, obviously. Or any normal Loyalist. Her clothing said as much, and the smooth, unhurried way she moved underscored her ancient origins. This woman was a passenger. Wealthy, almost certainly. And probably unaccustomed to having a dead woman in her home.

'My name is Quee Lee.'

Washen nodded slowly, dancing with the pain. Eyes panned across the terran jungle. Wet green foliage was punctuated with riots of wild tropical flowers. Birds and painted bats darted through the sweet warm air. On the rotting stump of a tree, a troop of tailored monkeys sat in a sloppy ring, conspicuously ignoring the humans, playing some sort of game with stones and sticks and the delicate white skulls of dead owls.

'They'll be back,' said the hostess. 'Soon.'

'They?*

'My husband and your friend.'

Washen lay inside an open autodoc bed, her new body dressed in a blackish goo of silicone and dissolved oxygen and a trillion microchines. This was how a soldier was reborn — too fast and clumsily, flesh and bone made in bulk while immunological functions were kept to a minimum. Quee Lee sat on one side of the bed, Locke on the other. Her son was dressed in a passenger's colorful garb, his flesh darkened by UV light, his lovely thick hair grown long enough to make a golden stubble, hands and broad bare feet lashed together with standard security cord.

Quietly, anxiously, she asked, 'How long has it been?' He didn't respond.

Quee Lee leaned forward, saying, 'One hundred and twenty-two years. Minus a few days.'

Washen remembered the explosive blows and the sensation of being yanked out of the leech habitat, tumbling and tumbling as her flesh froze and her mind pulled itself into the deepest possible coma.

When the nausea passed, she asked, 'Did you find me, Locke?'

He opened his mouth, and he closed it again. 'Pamir rescued you,' said Quee Lee. 'With your son's help.'

Again Washen glanced at the black security cords, then managed to laugh. 'I'm glad the two of you have become good friends.'

Embarrassment bled into a chilly anger. Locke straightened his back, then forced himself to explain. 'It was an accident. I went to the alien house. To see if the captains, or anyone else, had been there. And that ugly man stumbled over me.'

Pamir. Sure.

Her son shook his head in disgust, bare toes curling and uncurling in the black earth. What would a Wayward make of this rich soil? And the impossibly green trees? And the monkeys? And what about the ornate song of that
little
rilly bird that fell on them from the highest branches?

Finally, with a massive sadness, Locke admitted, 'I was weak.'

'Why?' asked Washen.

'I should have killed your friend.'

'Pamir's difficult to kill,' she responded. 'Believe me.'

Again, Locke clung to his silence.

Washen took a deep, thorough breath, then sat up in bed, the black goo clinging to her baby-smooth, utterly hairless flesh. When the worst of the pain subsided, she looked at Quee Lee and said, 'One hundred and twenty-two years.' She sighed and said, 'Circumstances have changed while I was sleeping. That's my guess.'

The woman flinched, then smiled shyly.

'What's happening?' asked Washen. 'With the ship—?'

'Nothing has happened,' said her hostess. 'According to our new Master Captain, the ship needed a change of leadership. Incompetence was rife. And now, according to her, everything is the same as before, except for what's better, and we'd be fools to entertain the tiniest concern.'

Washen glared at her son.

He refused to blink or look at any face.

Then to herself, in a soft angry voice, she said,'Miocene.'

And she turned back to Quee Lee, adding, 'That's who she sounds like.'

The apartment's
AI spoke with a firm authority, announcing, 'Perri is approaching. With the other one, he is.'

It said, 'They seem to be alone.'

Then it asked, 'Do I allow them inside, Quee Lee?'

'Absolutely'

Three more days had passed. Washen was six hours out of her bed, dressed in a simple white sarong and white sandals, and she had just eaten her first solid meal in more than a century, the endless fatigue turning into a nervous energy. She stood beside Quee Lee, waiting. The apartment door opened, its security screen in place, and out in the wide, tree-lined avenue, there was no one. What should have been a busy scene on any normal day was unnaturally quiet. Suddenly two men strode into view. The smaller man was handsome, smiling with an unconscious charm. The other man was larger and simple-faced, and Washen made the obvious mistake. Once the door was closed and locked by twenty means, she said to that larger man, 'Hello, Pamir.'