The False Admiral (18 page)

“Then she's coming off better on that deal.”

“Most likely.”

“I can beat that,” Nils said.

“I already know about the thing with the dreadnought cannon.”

“Oh, you heard?”

“That wasn't you, obviously.”

“No, but he was in my wing.” Nils was disappointed that he didn't get to tell his story. Even I had heard the one about the Evagardian cadet who vaporized himself.

“How could something like that happen?” Salmagard asked. I was glad to hear her speak up. I was willing to bet she had some stories to tell about her own training.

“Too smart for his own good,” Nils said.

“I think anyone else would call him too stupid,” Deilani countered.

“But he couldn't have gotten in there without bypassing maximum clearance locks. He was the
best
.”

“And now lost to our gene pool forever.”

“Well, like you said—his DNA's still on file.” Nils was grinning inside his helmet.

“Can't see anyone taking much interest,” Deilani said, looking over to watch the surface of the planet roll past. “I wouldn't go near it.”

“The desire to show off: poor evolutionary trait,” Nils said.

“Quite,” Deilani sniffed.

“It has its uses,” I said.

“Like what, Admiral?”

“You've got to impress girls somehow,” I said. “Doesn't matter where you come from. That's a universal constant.”

“There are better ways,” Deilani said firmly.

“Oh, you know about this?”

“What? No.”

“Then you wouldn't know,” I told her.

“How did your gender stay on top for as long as it did?” she snapped.

WE only got about eight hours from the crawler before it finally rolled to a stop.

The screens vanished, and the warning lights went dark. It wouldn't move another centimeter. Several moments passed in silence. We all climbed out.

Our O
2
tanks had gone away amazingly quickly during the ride. We were down to nothing but the fresh cartridges we'd been saving. That was good; I was beginning to feel my withdrawal again, and carrying heavy O
2
tanks wouldn't make the most of the energy I had left.

Walking away from the crawler wasn't as easy as driving away from the Avenger had been. We were all tired of riding, but none of us wanted to see the vehicle go.

The planet that had flowed by so effortlessly suddenly seemed
huge and daunting. I didn't ask Nils how far we'd come. Knowing wouldn't change anything.

It had taken longer to drive past the spires than to fly past them; now that we were on foot, it took ages. What did it look like, four figures in white trudging across the black planet? We were lucky to be above the mist for the moment; it would have made for uncertain footing that would have cost us time we couldn't afford.

I thought about the oddest things: how to breathe most efficiently; wondering what the best gait would be in this situation. Ridiculous things, but I'd take anything to keep my mind from wandering.

“. . . what about you, Admiral?”

“What?”

“You may as well tell us who you really are,” Nils said, walking just ahead of me.

“It's not important,” I said.

“I don't think anyone believes that.”

“You're happier not knowing.”

“Then you really are our enemy,” Nils said.

“I'm not
your
enemy. If I wanted to hurt you, I think I had plenty of chances. More air for me. I'm a friend.”

“But you're not an admiral,” Deilani said.

“It's an honorary title.”

“You're not an officer.”

“Even an honorary admiral is still an officer.”

“You're not an imperial,” Nils pressed.

“I
am
Evagardian,” I said patiently.

“What could you possibly have to gain by hiding it now?” Deilani asked.

“Maybe I haven't given up on us living through this,” I told her. “I wouldn't have bothered with all this nonsense if I didn't think it at least gave us a chance. You think I'm leading you on for my health? It's all well and good to be prepared for the worst, but you guys are ridiculous.”

Salmagard snorted, and quickly cut her com so we couldn't hear. Nils actually turned and looked over his shoulder at me.

“What? Can't I stay positive?” I asked.

“You're just trying to change the subject. What kind of secret could you possibly want to take to the grave this way?”

“Nothing special. You're better off living not knowing. You're better off dying not knowing,” I said. “Has it occurred to you that I'm doing you a favor?”

Deilani's sound of derision was transmitted clearly over our helmet coms.

“You don't have to believe me; you just have to keep walking.”

“If we are rescued, you're done for,” Nils said. “You have to know that.”

“Not true,” Deilani told him. “He thinks the Ganraens will protect him.”

“What about us?”

“We'll be hostages, I expect. As far as killing us, he's telling the truth. If he wanted us dead, he wouldn't have brought us along. I'm starting to see what he's up to. We've played right into his hands.”

I didn't let myself laugh. It would be a waste of air. “Lieutenant, you are a girl of wonderful insight. Sometimes.”

Nils cut in, perhaps hoping to avoid another argument. “We
never did find out what happened to the captain. What was going on with you guys when you were in Medical?” he asked.

I considered that. “Something was alive in there,” I told him.

“That's impossible.”

“That's what we said. We think it was a hamster.”

“A what?”

“Earth mammal. Common pet,” I explained.

“But Medical was three decks down, and a long way from anybody's quarters.”

“We're open to suggestions.”

“You said you'd seen a survey,” Deilani said to me.

“I heard about the survey. I never
saw
anything,” I corrected.

“They concluded there was no life here, didn't they?”

“I think so—but how they could do that with faulty scanner readings, I'm not sure. I don't know if they came down here and looked, or even sampled for microorganisms.”

“That's what I was thinking. Suppose there
is
something alive here,” she said.

“I've been supposing it. I'm still not sure I buy it. This place is barren. Even if there were small organisms, say the size of the thing we trapped—I think we'd still see some evidence of them. We didn't see anything when we went underground.”

“We should never have gone down there.” Deilani shook her head. “That was stupid.”

“I know, and it's my fault. But we didn't see anything. And if they're not up here and they aren't down there, where are they? I don't think we had a local.”

“What
could
live here? There's no atmosphere,” Nils said.

“There's some pretty hardy stuff out there. Life's adaptable. But like I said, I don't think there's anything here. There's got to be an explanation for what we found in the lab. What about some kind of rogue prosthetic? Part of an artificial hand?” I said.

“That would make sense.” Nils liked that explanation.

“It would be a pretty small one,” I added.

“Maybe for a woman?”

“The crew was two men,” Deilani pointed out.

“Might not've been; I know Tremma was a guy, but he could've had a different pilot officer. Hell, a malfunctioning prosthetic could actually explain that stuff with the incinerator.”

My brows lifted. That was actually a plausible explanation. I imagined that the copilot had a prosthetic hand. Something went wrong, causing the copilot to lose control of the hand. They went to Medical and switched it out with a backup—then they went outside with the 14-14. They came back in, and the backup hand had the same problem, except this time there was an incinerator involved. And for some reason, the safety tab had been removed.

It was thin. A lot of things would've had to line up just right to get the outcome that we saw, but it wasn't impossible.

“Are you sure
you
didn't kill them?” Deilani asked.

“Yes,” I said. “What's the matter?”

“I'm just thinking about the thing you caught. We didn't see it, but we heard it. What if you had something like that in your suit? Would you panic?” She looked back at me. “Could explain what happened to them.”

“You couldn't have something like that in an EV.”

“But the men in the airlock were wearing tech suits; plenty of room in there for a stowaway,” she pointed out.

I shuddered. She was right. “I don't even want to think about that.” It was a nightmarish idea. I looked down and focused on walking.

“What do you have to worry about? You're wearing an EV.”

“It could still get in the helmet.”

“Can we talk about something else?” Nils asked.

We walked on. It was endless. Sometimes we waded through the mist; sometimes we felt as though we were swimming through it. Sometimes there was no mist at all, and we were just walking on the vaguely reflective black surface. It was all the same. Hills were always gentle, and valleys never went too deep, except for the occasional crevice, but these were never substantial. We could usually jump across.

Conversation eventually trailed off, and we walked in silence.

Things took a turn for the grim every time one of us had to switch out an O
2
cartridge. We left the spent ones behind, a trail leading back to the crawler that we would never use again.

I could sense the trainees' spirits darkening with every passing kilometer.

Things came to a head when we reached a crack in the ground that wasn't so easily jumped.

Nils stood at the edge, looking down into the dark. “What if we just got it over with? What if we just dropped them all in here?” he asked.

“What?” I didn't understand what he was saying.

“Drop them in, eject the ones we've got. It'd be over fast.”

“Why not just jump in and see what's down there?” I asked, spreading my arms.

He turned to me. “You really want to just walk this out?”

“What have we got to lose?” I didn't wait for an answer. “Do
you have a better way you could be spending your time right now? I've got places to be, Ensign. If you want to stay, give them your cartridges first.” I got a start and made the jump, barely.

Deilani ran past Nils and jumped as well. Salmagard made it look easy.

The three of us looked back at Nils over the gap. Shaking his head, he backed up a few steps, then jumped, but either he miscalculated, or his heart wasn't in it. Deilani and I were there, though. We caught him by the arms and hauled him up.

“Everybody's told a story but you,” he gasped as we lifted him to his feet.

“Is that what it's going to take for you to stop talking?” I started to walk again, telling myself not to be bothered by the delay. “Let me think of one.” I sighed. I wasn't really in the mood. The detox wasn't making me any cheerier. I didn't know what was worse: the withdrawal, or not being able to get out of this EV suit.

“Don't make it up,” Deilani said.

“I wouldn't do that.”

“Tell us a spy story,” Nils said.

“Do I seem like a spy?”

“Not at all,” he admitted.

“What
do
I seem like?” I asked Nils.

“I don't know. Sometimes you're like this rich Ganraen. Sometimes it's like you know what you're doing.” He shrugged. “I'm not worrying about it anymore.”

“I wouldn't expect a spy to be such a pretty boy, but I don't know much about spies,” Deilani said. “You're the first one I've met.”

I felt myself bristle, and decided this wasn't the time for it. “I
don't know any spy stories. But I do remember something from when I was a kid.”

“In Ganrae?” Deilani asked.

“Never mind where it was. When I was away from home, sort of unsupervised for maybe the first time ever, I met a girl.”

“Oh dear,” Deilani said.

“Don't interrupt. This girl and I got along. That was kind of new to me; it had never happened before. I really liked her. But like I said, I was away from home. And I had to go back.” I ignored their exaggerated noises of sympathy and cleared my throat to shut them up. “But we stayed in touch, sort of as good friends. She liked me. A lot. And I knew it—and I was glad—but I didn't want to change the status quo, so I just played it like I didn't know.”

“That's terrible,” Deilani said.

“Will you let me finish?”

“I don't like this story,” Nils said.

“You make your bed and you sleep in it, Nils.”

“Fine.”

“Thank you. I lost track of her. I don't know how; I don't remember. Maybe I started taking her for granted. Knowing me, that was probably it. Anyway, I found out that later on she'd taken some wrong turns and ended up in a less than desirable spot. I told myself for a long time that it made me miserable because I thought that if she'd been with me, she might not have made some of those decisions. Of course that wasn't true; I was really miserable because she was with someone else, and it killed me to think about it. I was really young when all that happened. Like twelve. I mean, I was twelve when I lost track of her. I was older when I found out the rest.”

A pause.

“That's the story?” Deilani said, incredulous.

“That's it,” I said.

“That's terrible. That's the most depressing thing I ever heard,” Nils said, disgusted. “Why would you tell such a downer?”

“It's not as bad as it sounds,” I replied. “In retrospect—logical, grown-up retrospect—she and I weren't remotely suited to each other, so at least in a way, it's just as well that we were never together.”

“That isn't very romantic,” Deilani noted.

“
That
is the truth. Doesn't make it hurt any less—it's just a thing. But it's not a depressing story—it's relevant. It's about having things to live for.”

“How do you get that from that story?” Nils demanded.

“Because there's no one to blame but me. I have to better myself and move on; I have to get past it, and I can't do that if I'm dead. I have to put her to rest.”

“Is she dead?”

“No. You know what I mean.”

“
I
thought you meant you could die here with no hard feelings, because that would put it to bed for you,” Nils said.

“No, that would be cowardly. Hardly befitting an imperial admiral,” I added.

“You do carry yourself like an admiral sometimes,” Deilani admitted. “But we all know better.”

“You seem awfully sure of that. You all have stuff you want to do, right? Don't tell me they teach you to give up at your academies.”

“You'd know if you'd ever been through one,” Deilani pointed out.

I groaned.

*   *   *

Space sparkled above. The black planet didn't sparkle back. The light of the suns grew slightly brighter, bathing us in a green light that shone on our white EV suits as we walked.

We passed chasms that might have gone to the core of the planet, and spires larger than space stations.

The time came.

I ejected my spent O
2
cartridge and snapped in my last full one. I paused and looked back at the trainees. “Last one.”