Singularity Sky (11 page)

The Lieutenant gaped. “But you’re a—”

“—colonel in the United Nations of Earth Security Council combined armed forces. What part of ‘by special order of Archduke Michael’ don’t you understand? Are you going to stand there gaping, or are you going to invite me aboard?”

“Urgh. Um, yes.” The Lieutenant disappeared back into the shuttle’s flight deck; reappeared a minute later. “Um. Colonel, ah, Mansour? Please come aboard.”

Rachel nodded and walked past him. Still carefully expressionless, she seated herself immediately behind the flight deck door, in officer country.

And listened.

The CPO was educating the new intake. “At ease, you lads,” he growled.

“Find yerselves a seat. Front row, facing back, that’s right! Now buckle in.

All six points, that’s right. Check the seat in front of you for a sick bag.

Welcome to the vomit comet; this boat’s too small to have any gravity emulators and doesn’t accelerate faster’n a quadriplegic in a wheelbarrow, so if you get sick in free fall, you’re damn well going to throw up into those bags. Anyone who pukes up on the furniture and fittings can spend the next week cleaning ’em. Got that?”

Everyone nodded. Rachel felt cautiously optimistic; it looked as if everyone else on this run, apart from Chief Moronici, was a new assignment to the ship. Which meant her information was probably correct: they were working up to wartime levels, and departure wouldn’t be delayed long.

The door to the passenger cabin slid closed; there was a rumble below as automatic pallets rolled in and out of the shuttle’s cargo bay. Moronici knocked on the forward door and went through when it opened; he reappeared a minute later. “Launch in two minutes,” he announced. “Hang on tight!”

The two minutes passed at a snail’s pace. Banging and thumping announced that dockside fuel and support lines were disconnecting; then there was a lurch and a jolt followed by a loud hissing that died away as the airlock seal was broken behind them. “You’re all new fish here,” Chief Moronici told the flyers. “Not surprising as we’re taking on a lot of new crew.

Start of a new conscription cycle. Me,”—he pointed a meaty thumb at his chest—“I’m not a conscript. I live on the ship we’re going to. And I want to live on it long enough to collect my pension. Which means I don’t intend to let you, or anyone else, do anything that endangers me or my home. The first rule of space travel”—they lurched sideways, drunkenly, and there was a disconcertingly loud rattle from underneath— “is that mistakes are fatal.

Space isn’t friendly, it kills you. And there are no second chances.”

As if to emphasize the point, the bottom suddenly dropped out of Rachel’s stomach. For a moment, she felt as if a huge, rubbery, invisible gripper was trying to pull her apart—and then she was floating. The ratings all looked as surprised as Chief Moronici looked smug.

“Main engine should come on in about five minutes,” Moronici announced.

Banging and clicking shuddered through the cramped cabin, as it veered gently to the left: thrusters were busy nudging it out of the dock. “Like I was saying, mistakes here tend to kill people. And I have no intention of letting you kill me. Which is why, while you’re on board the Lord Vanek, you pukes will do exactly what I, or any other PO, or any officer, tells you to do. And you will do it with a shit-eating grin, or I will ram your head so far up your ass you’ll be able to give yourself a tonsillectomy with your teeth. Is that understood?” He continued to ignore Rachel, implicitly acknowledging that she lay outside his reach.

The ratings nodded. One of them, green-faced, gulped, and Moronici swiftly yanked a sick bag from the back of an adjacent seat and held it in front of the man’s face. Rachel saw what he was trying to do; the pep talk was as much a distraction from the disorientation of free fall as anything else.

Rachel closed her eyes and breathed deeply—then regretted it: the shuttle stank of stale sweat, with a faint undertone of ozone and the sickly-sweet odor of acetone. It had been a long time since she’d prayed for anything, but right now she was praying with all her might for this ride in a tin can to come to an end. It was the crummiest excuse for a shuttle she’d been on in decades, an old banger like something out of an historical drama. It seemed to go on and on. Until, of course, it stopped with a buffet and clang as they latched on to the Lord Vanek’s stabilized docking adapter, then a grinding creak as it pulled them in and spun them up, and a hiss as pressure equalized.

“Erm, Colonel?”

She opened her eyes. It was CPO Moronici. He looked somewhat green, as if unsure how to deal with her. “It’s alright, Chief. I’ve gone aboard foreign naval vessels before.” She stood. “Is there anyone waiting for me?”

“Yes’m.” He stared straight ahead, as if outrageously embarrassed.

“Fine.” She unbuckled, stood, feeling the uneven gravity of the battlecruiser’s spin, and adjusted her beret. “Let me at them.”

The airlock opened. “Section, present—arms!”

She stepped forward into the docking bay, feeling the incredulous stares from all sides. A senior officer, a commander if she read his insignia correctly, was waiting for her, face stiffly frozen to conceal the inevitable surprise. “Colonel Mansour, UN Disarmament Inspectorate,” she said.

“Hello, Commander—”

“Murametz.” He blinked, perplexed. “Ah, your papers? Lieutenant Menvik says you’re attached to the Admiral’s staff. But they didn’t tell us to expect you—”

“That’s perfectly alright.” She pointed him down the corridor that led to the ship’s main service core. “They don’t know about me yet. At least, not unless Archduke Michael warned them. Just take me to see the Admiral, and everything will be alright.”

Her luggage rolled quietly after her, on a myriad of brightly colored ball bearings.

The Admiral was having a bad morning: his false pregnancy was causing problems again.

“I feel ill,” he mumbled quietly. “Do I have to—to get up?”

“It would help, sir.” Robard, his batman, gently slid an arm around his shoulders to help him sit up. “We depart in four hours. Your staff meeting is penciled in for two hours after that, and you have an appointment with Commodore Bauer before then. Ah, there’s also a communique from His Royal Highness that has a most-urgent seal on it.”

“Well bring it—it—it in then,” said the Admiral. “Damned morning sickness …”

Just then, the annunciator in the next room chimed softly. “I’ll just check that, sir,” said Robard. Then: “Someone to see you, sir. Without an appointment. Ah—it’s a what? A—oh, I see. Alright then. He’ll be ready in a minute.” Pacing back into the bedroom, he cleared his throat. “Sir, are you ready? Ah, yes. Ahem. You have a visitor, sir. A diplomat who has been seconded to your staff by order of Archduke Michael; some sort of foreign observer.”

“Oh.” Kurtz frowned. “Didn’t have any of them back at Second Lamprey.

Just as well, really. Just lots of darkies. Bloody bad sports, those darkies, wouldn’t stand still and be shot. Bloody foreigners. Show the man in!”

Robard cast a critical eye over his master. Sitting up in bed with his jacket wrapped around his shoulders, he looked like a convalescent turtle—but marginally presentable. As long as he didn’t tell the ambassador all about his ailment, it could probably be passed off as an attack of gout. “Yes, sir.”

The door opened and Robard’s jaw dropped. Standing there was a stranger in a strange uniform. He had an attache case clasped under one arm, and a rather bemused-looking commander standing beside him.

Something about the man shrieked of strangeness, until Robard worked it out; his mouth twisted with distaste as he muttered, “Invert,” to himself.

Then the stranger spoke—in a clear, high voice. “United Nations of Earth, Standing Committee on Multilateral Disarmament. I’m Colonel Mansour, special agent and military attache to the embassy, attached to this expedition as an observer on behalf of the central powers. My credentials.”

That voice! If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he was a woman, thought Robard.

“Thank you. If you’d come this way, please, my lord is indisposed but will receive you in his sleeping quarters.” Robard bowed and backed into the Admiral’s bedroom, where he was mortified to find the old man lying back on his pillows, mouth agape, snoring quietly.

“Ahem. Sir! Your Lordship!” A bleary eye opened. “May I introduce Colonel, ah—”

“—Rachel Mansour.”

“—Rachel Mansour”—he squeaked—“from Earth, military attache from the embassy! His, er, credentials.” The colonel looked on, smiling faintly as the flustered batman proffered the case to the Admiral.

“S’funny name for a c-colonel, Colonel,” mumbled the Admiral. “Are ye sure you’re not a, a—ah—”

He sneezed, violently, then sat up. “Damn these goose-down pillows,” he complained bitterly. “And damn the gout. Wasn’t like this at First Lamprey.”

“Indeed not,” Rachel observed drily. “Lots of sand there, as I recall.”

“Very good, that man! Lots of sand, indeed, lots of sand. Sun beating down on your head, ragheads all over the place shooting at you, and not really anything big enough to nuke from orbit. Whose command were you in, eh?”

“As a matter of fact, I was with the war crimes tribunal. Sifting mummified body parts for evidence.”

Robard went gray, waiting for the Admiral to detonate, but the old man simply laughed raucously. “Robard! Help me up, there’s a good fellow. I say-ay, I never expected to meet a fellow veteran here! To my desk. I must inspect his credentials!”

Somehow they managed to migrate the fifteen feet or so to the Admiral’s study without his complaining bitterly about the cost of maternity wear or gingerly inspecting his legs to make sure they hadn’t turned to glass overnight—one of his occasional nightmares—and the effeminate colonel discreetly slid himself into one of the visitor’s chairs. Robard stared at the man. A woman’s name, a high voice, if he didn’t know better, he could almost believe that—

“Duke Michael agreed to my presence for two reasons,” said Mansour.

“Firstly, you should be aware that as an agent of the UN it is my job to report back impartially on any—I emphasize, any—violations of treaties to which your government is a party. But more importantly, there is a shortage of information about the entity which has attacked your colony world. I’m also here to bear witness in case they make use of forbidden or criminal weapons. I am also authorized to act as a neutral third party for purposes of arbitration and parley, to arrange exchanges of prisoners and cease-fires, and to ensure that, insofar as any war can be conducted in a civilized manner, this one is.”

“Well that’s a damn fine thing to know, sir, and you are welcome to join my staff,” said the Admiral, sitting upright in his bath chair. “Feel free to approach me whenever you want! You’re a good man, and I’m pleased to know there’s another vet-eteran of First Lamprey in the fleet.” For a brief moment, he looked alarmed. “Oh dear. It’s kicking again.”

Mansour looked at him oddly. Robard opened his mouth, but the foreign colonel managed to speak before he could change the subject. “It?”

‘The baby,“ Kurtz confided, looking miserable. ”It’s an elephant. I don’t know what to do with it. If its father—“ He stopped. His expression of alarm was chilling.

“Ahem. I think you’d better withdraw now, sir,” said Robard, staring coldly at Rachel. “It’s time for His Lordship’s medicine. I’m afraid it would be for the best if in future you’d call ahead before visiting; he has these spells, you know.”

Rachel shook her head. “I’ll remember to do that.” She stood. “Good-bye, sir.” She turned and departed.

As he was helping the Admiral out of his chair, Robard thought he heard a soprano voice from outside: “—Didn’t know you had elephants!” He shook his head hopelessly. Women aboard the Imperial flagship, admirals who thought they were pregnant, and a fleet about to embark on the longest voyage in naval history, against an unknown enemy. Where was it going to end?

The Citizen curator was unamused. “So. To summarize, the Navy boys gave you the run-around, but have now allowed you on board their precious battlecruiser. Along the way, you lost contact with your subject for an entire working day. Last night you say he did nothing unusual, but you report patchy coverage. And what else? How did he spend that evening?”

“I don’t understand, sir,” Vassily said tightly. “What do you mean?”

The Citizen scowled furiously; even at a forty-thousand-kilometer remove, his picture on the screen was enough to make Vassily recoil. “It says in your report,” the Citizen said with heavy emphasis, “that the subject left his apartment, was lost for a few minutes, and was next seen dining at a public establishment in the company of an actress. At whose apartment he subsequently spent a good few hours before returning to base. And you didn’t investigate her?”

Vassily flushed right to the tips of his ears. “I thought—”

“Has he ever done anything like this before? While in New Prague, for example? I think not. According to his file he has led the life of a monk since arriving in the Republic. Not once, not once in nearly two months at the Glorious Crown Hotel, did he show any sign of interest in the working girls. Yet as soon as he arrives and starts work, what does he do?”

“I didn’t think of that.”

“I know you didn’t.” The Citizen Curator fell silent for a moment, but his expression was eloquent; Vassily cringed before it. “I’m not going to do any more of your thinking for you, but perhaps you’d be so good as to tell me what you propose to do next.”

“Uh.” Vassily blinked. “Run a background check on her? If it’s clear, ask her a few questions? Keep a closer eye on him in future … ?”

“Very good.” The Citizen grinned savagely. “And what have you learned from this fiasco?”

“To watch the subject’s behavior, and be alert for changes in it,” Vassily said woodenly. “Especially the things he doesn’t do, as much as those he does.” It was a basic message, one drilled into recruits all the way through training, and he could kick himself for forgetting it. How could he have missed something so obvious?

“That’s right.” The Citizen leaned back, away from the camera on his phone.