Strider's Galaxy (7 page)

"Techbots are alerted," said the Computer, "in case of atmospheric leakage."

In case any of those bits of junk out there crack the hull, is what you're too polite to say,
thought Strider sourly.

"Update me," she said wearily to the screen, once she could bring it into focus.

"Meteor shields are one hundred per cent. They are currently deflecting the next drone, which may also be lost as a result. I am working with its onboard puter to try to calculate a secure trajectory so that it—"

"About the danger to the
Santa Maria
," she said.

"Below one per cent and falling rapidly," said the Main Computer. She could almost have imagined that it sounded aggrieved.

She let out another great gust of breath.

"I think we've managed it," she said, looking towards O'Sondheim.

It took him a couple of seconds to reply.

"I think you have," he said.

#

Marcial Holmberg cornered Strider as she made her way back to her cabin after she and O'Sondheim had finished their tour of duty and handed over to Leander and Nelson. She was tired beyond the limits of exhaustion, and looked jadedly at the short, stout man. She and O'Sondheim should probably have called in the other two to take over as soon as the crisis had been averted, but she'd decided that they should work on: it was better the personnel were encouraged to believe that such things were all in a day's work than that they started to wonder just how close to death they had all been.

She could tell from the expression on Holmberg's face that her policy had backfired on her.

"I represent the non-SSIA personnel aboard this craft," he began pompously.

"I know," she said wearily. "You've told me often enough before." He told her every time they met, which was as infrequently as she could manage it.
Why is it that groups of apparently sane, intelligent human beings always elect dorks as their representatives?
she thought for the hundredth time. And, likewise for the hundredth time, she answered her own question.
It's because the dorks elect themselves, that's why. Sane, intelligent human beings have better things to do.
Out loud she said: "Dr Holmberg, how may I help you?"

"There was an emergency three hours ago, and all of our people had to stop their work—important work, I might add—in order to suit up." Holmberg had put on a lot of weight since they had left Phobos; Strider wasn't certain quite how he'd managed it, because the rations aboard the
Santa Maria
were reasonable but not over-generous.

"It was certainly an emergency," she said. She explained roughly what had happened.

"Our lives were endangered, is what you're trying to tell me," said Holmberg.

"They were indeed. But First Officer O'Sondheim and I were able, with the assistance of the Main Computer, to avert the danger."

"But only at the very last moment. That's not good en—"

"It's good enough for me." She raised a palm towards him. "I'm very tired, Dr Holmberg."

He ignored her. "Why was the emergency allowed to arise in the first place?"

"Because the puter on one of the fuel-ferry drones crashed. It shouldn't have happened. There'll doubtless be an inquiry in due course—with luck, sometime after we've left Jupiter far behind." She was finding it intensely difficult to keep her patience. It would be bad for personnel morale to land a punch smack in the middle of that pompous, technology-enhanced face, but . . .

"Was there any way in which the SSIA crew of this vessel could have stopped this emergency before it began?"

"No. It was totally unpredictable."

"Isn't that shameful?"

Strider shrugged. "Puters sometimes crash," she said.

"There should be back-ups."

"Yes, there probably should be, even on drones. But the tasks drones normally have to do are pretty simple, and normally there are big puters overseeing them and ready to take over. This time it didn't work. Look, I need some sleep."

"So the SSIA, for reasons of economy—because they didn't put back-up puters in the drones—risked every human life aboard this ship? Is that what you're trying to tell me?" He mopped sweat away from his brow with the back of his sleeve.

"I'm trying to tell you that there might—just
might
—have been a disaster, but we stopped it from happening. Can't you accept that?"

His perspiration was making her perspire as well.

"The personnel whom I have been elected to represent are very concerned about the fact that their lives have been wilfully put in danger," said Holmberg.

Infuriated beyond control at last, Strider stabbed her finger into the center of his chest. "First, I don't believe it: I'll call a meeting if you like. Second, I think your people will tell you, if you'd listen to them, that they're damn' glad their skins were saved. Third, it probably wasn't too bad an idea that we had this crisis while still in the Solar System, because now we know what to do: if something like it had happened for the first time a year from now, in interstellar space, we could have been wiped out completely. Fourth . . . aw, shit, there are a whole lot of things lining up for 'fourth'. Now can you let me go? I need to crash out a while."

"That's not good enough, Captain Strider."

"Get it into your teensy head that me and First Officer O'Sondheim have just saved your life!" she shouted, shoving him away from her.

He raised a fist.

"Hit me and you're dead meat," she said.

He lowered it again.

"I could have you thrown off the
Santa Maria
as an undesirable," she added. "If I were feeling charitable I wouldn't just flush you out through the nearest airlock but arrange for you to be shuttled down to Ganymede. Is that what you really want? To miss out on seeing Tau Ceti
II
?"

There was a pause during which she became aware of the sound of barley-heads rustling in the fields on either side of the path.

"Well . . . no," said Holmberg.

"Then get things straight, buster." She wiped her lips with the back of her hand. The exhaustion seemed to be moving through her in low pulses. "Your job is to look after the interests of the non-SSIA personnel. I respect that: it's an important job. My job is to make sure this vessel gets to Tau Ceti
II
, and to safeguard the lives of everybody aboard her if I possibly can. When it comes to it, because I'm better at my job than you can possibly be at yours, you will do what I say."

"We're supposed to discuss—"

"Yeah, and we
will
discuss things when it's appropriate. Right now it's not." She jabbed her finger at him again. "Right now it's important for everyone's lives that I get some sleep. You're stopping me from doing that. Ask all of your people what they
actually
think about what happened today, and then you can come and see me tomorrow. We can 'discuss'"—she covered the word in sarcasm—"as much as you like at that point. But not now. OK?"

"This is not democratic," said Holmberg stiffly.

"Who ever said," remarked Strider, walking away from him towards her cabin, "this was supposed to be a democracy?"

#

Leander and Nelson had watched the entire scene via their secondary retinal screens.

"There's trouble a-brewing," said Nelson. He was a blocky man, his face craggy, his skin even blacker than Strider's. Like O'Sondheim, he had retinal screens over both eyes. He wore a bushy grey-white beard with pride. He smiled at Maloron Leander. "It's gonna be a real fun mission if this keeps up."

"I think Leonie's just taken the trouble off the boil," said Leander quietly. Although as tall as Nelson, she was extremely slight, her figure seeming barely able to support her height.

"Holmberg hates her," said Nelson.

"Right now he does." Her voice had a clipped quality that Nelson relished. The two of them had been regular lovers since about three months out towards Jupiter. They hadn't committed themselves yet—Leander slept with whom she liked, and Nelson generally slept with whoever liked him—but it seemed probable that sometime during the trip they would settle down with each other. They enjoyed each other's company. Sex between them wasn't all that great, in strict technical terms, but they had the same sense of humor, which made up for a lot. They enjoyed the stupid jokes they shared when they woke up together.

"In a couple of days' time," Leander continued, "he'll come round. The man isn't an imbecile."

"Coulda fooled me."

"He has degrees in astrophysics, astrometry, mathematics, chemistry, economics, ergonomics . . ."

"And he's a damn' troublemaker."

She touched a few buttons on her keyboard, making a small adjustment to the course of an incoming drone.

"He's not all bad," she said. "He's playing a game, that's all. He wants Leonie to know that she's not a god."

"Shit, darling, you just fucked up," said Nelson, suddenly concentrating very hard on his keyboard. His fingers moved rapidly. "We coulda lost some fuel there."

"I was only testing your concentration. It was a deliberate mistake, OK?"

After he had tapped in a few more instructions they both began to laugh.

The drone docked successfully, locking to the rear of the
Santa Maria
like a fly against a wall. Another drone was already beginning to come on-screen.

"Holmberg's an asshole," said Nelson after a few minutes. "There's no idiot like an idiot who's gathered himself a passel of degrees."

"I would remind you, Mr Nelson," said Leander primly, "that I too have several degrees to my credit."

"Yeah, but you're not an asshole. That's a big difference."

"
I AM OVERRIDING THE PUTER ON THE INCOMING DRONE
," said the Main Computer. It was a fairly standard message, so neither of them paid it more than cursory attention.

"Pinocchio," said Leander, looking back over her shoulder, "could you do me some coffee?"

"Of course, Maloron Leander," said the bot, who had parked himself unobtrusively near the rear of the command deck.

"Chocolate for me," said Nelson.

It was going to be a long shift. Both Leander and Nelson privately wished that something would go wrong, just as it had for Strider and O'Sondheim, so that the boredom would be alleviated a bit.

Nothing went wrong except that Pinocchio forgot her preferences and put milk in Leander's coffee. She drank it anyway.

#

Holmberg, too, was drinking coffee. He was sitting in his cabin, looking downwards between his knees through the window. Every now and then part of Jupiter would come into view. In between times he was offered a vista of stars or, rarely, a crescent of Ganymede. It was better than a holo, though that wasn't saying much. Jupiter had lost a lot of its glamour when the Great Red Spot had dissolved during the twenty-second century and the early part of the twenty-third: the Solar System's longest volcanic eruption—except possibly Neptune's Stigma Formation—had finally come to an end. But it was still a very exciting planet to see this close up, with its curvilinear formations of clouds. From here, too, you could appreciate the fact—in a way you never could from Mars or through holographs—that Jupiter's atmospheric structures were not just hugely wide: they were also hugely deep, and they operated on a completely different timescale from anything in the inner Solar System. A volcanic eruption on Earth might affect the atmosphere for a few months. The Great Red Spot had taken hundreds of years to die away.

Strider had been right. He'd recognized that even at the time. She'd saved everyone's lives.

If she hadn't been right, he might be feeling a little less resentful.

The truly annoying thing was that he
liked
her.

#

There was plenty of water aboard the
Santa Maria
. It was a luxury that Strider hadn't known since she'd left Earth for Mars. On Mars you could create the illusion of water any time you wanted to, but as soon as you switched the illusion off it was over. On the
Santa Maria
you could enjoy a long lukewarm shower at the start of the day and still feel refreshed by it when you fell on to your bed sixteen hours later. You could turn on a tap and fill up a liter cup with cold water and drink it all down, and then have some more, if you wanted to.

The recycling aboard the
Santa Maria
was very efficient.

Strider was having a shower at the moment, while at the same time briefing Dulac on what had happened with the berserker drone. She hadn't known the man was on Ganymede; it had probably been kept from her deliberately, so that he could covertly supervise her decisions in the final few months before blast-off from Jovian orbit. It was never too late to fire a starship captain until the starship was going faster than conventional ships could easily manage. She hadn't expected, either, that she would be speaking to him right now. She'd assumed he would have the common sense—the knowledge of personnel-management—to leave her and O'Sondheim alone for a while, so they could wind themselves down.

Her argument with Holmberg had stirred up her adrenalin again, so that when she got back to her cabin she looked at her bed and realized that sleep was a strange and distant country. So she'd started to run a shower, hoping the warm water would ease the tension out of her.

That was when the screen on the ceiling above her shower had clicked into life.

"Instigate face-to-face communication," she told the screen in answer to its question. Dulac had of necessity seen her naked hundreds of times before during the past few years—he probably knew her body better than she did, because there were bits of it she couldn't examine except in a mirror. She wasn't much worried in general by nudity, although she knew there were still some psychos on Earth who might get over-excited and jump you. Dulac wasn't like that.

Well, he probably wasn't. He was a hard man to read.

It didn't matter. He was down on Ganymede, the screen had said, and she was thousands of kilometers away on the
Santa Maria
. Let him slobber at the mouth if he wanted to. It was a long jump from Ganymede to here.