The Stars Down Under (19 page)

Sweeney leaned back against his locker. “Let me guess. You got in trouble as a kid yourself. Then you found a role model and straightened up and became a better person.”

She arched her eyebrows. “Is that your official Team Space response?”

“I'll talk to the captain,” he said. “Malachy's going to deny it, like he has every other time. She'll apologize, and worry some more about him. You'll disembark at Earth and go about your business, and never think of us again. Would you like to have dinner with me?”

“No,” Jodenny said, opening the hatch. “I'm committed to someone else.”

“No wedding ring.”

It hung on a silver chain around her neck, tucked deep inside her shirt. Jodenny said, “Don't need a ring,” and left him with that.

She was halfway to the quartermaster's when she realized what he had said.

“When are we coming back?” she demanded of Farber when she reached their cabin.

Farber was lying in her bunk, still pasty-faced and miserable. “What?”

“We're not booked for the return trip on this ship, are we? Lieutenant Sweeney thinks we're getting off at Earth. Captain Fisch promised me two weeks, no more—”

“Relax.” Farber fumbled for her vomit bag. “We have seats on the
Yellowstone
. It's a bigger liner, scheduled to return sooner than the
Kamchatka.
Don't you think you could trust me a little bit?”

With that, Farber threw up. Karl made a squeaking noise and burrowed under Jodenny's blankets in distress. Jodenny fetched Farber a glass of water and said, “You want to see the doctor again?”

Farber said, “No. I just want to die here in privacy.”

Jodenny took that as permission to leave.

On second thought, she took Karl with her.

*   *   *

Everyone loved Karl.

“Oh, how cute,” the Fraser daughters cooed when Jodenny visited the passenger lounge. They each wanted to hold him and cuddle him and stroke his fine golden fur. They cried, “Moms! Can't we get one?”

Mommy Alys was a bit reserved on the idea, but Mommy Kate promised to think about it. “Where did you get it?” she asked Jodenny.

Jodenny replied, “He was a gift.”

“All you ever give me are lice,” Mrs. Zhang said, pinching her husband's arm.

“What more do you deserve?” he asked, rubbing the spot.

The lounge was a long rectangular compartment with several sofas, wallvids, game consoles, card tables, and even an old-fashioned pool table. Malachy Balandra was playing Izim. He slunk out the door before she could confront him. She thought about following him, but he was fast on his feet, and knew the ship a whole lot better than she did.

“That's the captain's son,” Mommy Kate said, following her gaze. “Seems like a good kid.”

“Seems like,” Jodenny agreed blandly.

Sitting at the farkar table were the four business travelers Jodenny recognized from the night before. They introduced themselves as Lou Eterno, Louise Sharp, Baylou Owenstein, and Greg Smith, who said, “I get to be an honorary Lou. Hullabaloo, to be exact.”

“Join us in a game and you could be another honorary Lou,” Baylou said. “You can be Lu-lu.”

“No, thanks,” Jodenny said.

But a short time later Lou Eterno excused himself to go read, and three remaining Lous recruited Jodenny to play a game of pool.

Jodenny eyed the table. “I don't know the rules.”

“Neither do we.” Louise Sharp raised a glass of beer. She was a tall woman with magenta hair and dangling gold earrings. “Hit things into pockets. That's our plan.”

Hullabaloo said, “Be my partner. I'll show you how to do it.”

“What are we playing for?”

“Jellybeans,” Louise said. “The high stakes chocolate-bar wager comes later.”

Jodenny sized up a pool stick, rubbed the end dutifully with chalk, and followed Hullabaloo's friendly instructions. Her aim was okay, but twice she hit the cue ball so hard that it jumped off the table.

“Got a little pent-up frustration there?” Louise asked, not unkindly. “Hullabaloo, go get the girl a drink.”

“I'm fine,” Jodenny said.

Two hours and three beers later, she and Hullabaloo had lost all their jellybeans. Hullabaloo didn't seem to mind. He was her age, maybe younger, with a smile aimed most of the time at Baylou, who seemed to enjoy the attention. Karl was busy napping on the sofa in the lap of the youngest Fraser daughter, who was watching a movie.

“Thanks for bringing him,” Mommy Alys said. She'd been watching the game from a nearby stool. “We promised the girls a dog when we get to Earth.”

“You're not going on vacation?” Jodenny asked.

Mommy Kate, curled up in a corner chair with a book, said, “Moving.”

“Permanently?” Jodenny didn't mean to sound so surprised, but debased Earth hardly seemed fit for a young family. Then again, it didn't seem like a suitable vacation spot, either.

“As long as they'll have us,” Mommy Alys said, and dropped a sweater atop the sleeping child.

The overhead comm clicked, and an emergency klaxon began to wail. Jodenny's fist tightened on the pool stick so hard that she was surprised it didn't snap in two.

“Attention, all passengers and crew,” Captain Balandra said. “This is a emergency evacuation drill. Please consult your passenger information cards or the nearest crew member and report to your evacuation pods. I repeat, this is a drill, but your participation is mandatory.”

“Bloody rules,” Louise Sharp said, downing the rest of her drink.

Jodenny had forgotten the mandatory drill. Her PIC directed her to C-deck, pod 7. Not a far distance at all. The Frasers were also heading that way, as was Hullabaloo. Sailors stood by at every lift and ladder to direct traffic. It was all very orderly and calm, and the gray-green emergency pod was well outfitted with survival gear and medbots.

The officer in charge, a portly man named Chief Reed, made sure all twenty occupants were belted in and understood their responsibilities in case of a true emergency.

“This part of the pod is my area,” he said. “Passengers aren't allowed to touch it. We're fully automated, no steering wheel or navigation controls, but through this console I can talk to our onboard computer, and the computers aboard the
Kamchatka,
and communicate planetside.”

“Have you ever had to launch?” one of the Fraser girls asked.

Chief Reed patted her head. “Never, my dear. No emergencies are allowed around here. This ship has the best safety record in the fleet.”

Jodenny kept her gaze on the bulkhead and bit her lip. She knew what it was like to hear General Quarters klaxon for real, to smell burning flesh and fuel, to feel her lungs sear and heart trip-hammer in terror. But she was past that now. She was calm and collected.

“Ellen?” said Hullabaloo, from beside her. “You're going to break my arm.”

She realized that the armrest she'd been using was human, not plastic. “Sorry.”

“I've made this trip a dozen times. Trust me. They just do this because regulations say so.”

The drill lasted thirty minutes. Afterward, the Frasers asked Jodenny to join them for dinner. All she wanted was to crawl off to her cabin and recuperate. First she had to collect Karl from the lounge, where she'd left him curled up in the sofa cushions. But the little robot wasn't there. Jodenny searched under all the furniture and behind the vending machines. She remembered Malachy Balandra lingering earlier. The little weasel. She went up to senior-officer berthing on B-deck. A sign warned that the area was off-limits to passengers, but the captain's cabin wasn't hard to find.

She buzzed the hatch, and Malachy answered with Karl in his arms.

“What do you think you're doing?” Jodenny demanded.

“He was in the passageway!” Malachy protested. “I saved him from being stomped or getting lost.”

“Who is it, Mal?” asked a woman's voice from inside.

Malachy opened the hatch wider. Captain Balandra was standing in the middle of the suite, signing off a gib held by a young ensign. Balandra was tall, sturdy, and olive skinned, with a sweetheart-shaped face and neatly coiled dark hair.

“This is the bot's mom,” Malachy said, handing Karl over.

“Such a cute pet,” Balandra said pleasantly. “Now I'm going to have to get him one when we return to Fortune. Miss Spring, is it?”

“Ellen Spring, ma'am,” Jodenny said.

“Enjoying your trip so far?”

Karl nuzzled against Jodenny's neck. She said, “It's been educational.”

Captain Balandra laughed. “I'll take that in a positive way. Mal tells me you were able to fix one of our library gibs. I'd like to say our Maintenance Department would have been right on that, but thanks for taking the initiative.” To the ensign she said, “That's all, Mr. Ingstrom. Back to the bridge for you.”

“Ma'am,” Ingstrom said, and edged past Jodenny.

Balandra gazed frankly at Jodenny. “Know you, don't I? Your face is awfully familiar.”

“I get that a lot,” Jodenny said.

Malachy tilted his head, as if memorizing her features.

“I'm having some passengers over later to enjoy the drop into the Little Alcheringa,” Balandra said. “Can I interest you in some wine and cheese, at around twenty-one hundred hours?”

Farber would be irate if Jodenny took up the captain's invitation. For that, if no other reason, the offer was tempting. But Jodenny said, “Sorry, I have another commitment.”

“Maybe dinner some evening, before we reach Earth?”

“Maybe,” Jodenny said. “Thanks for watching Karl. Good evening, Captain.”

She intended to experience the shift from normal space into the Little Alcheringa from the safety of her cabin, but Hullabaloo and Baylou came by and nagged her into coming down to the Hole in the Wall. Passengers and crew alike had crowded into the bar, shouting to be heard over the music. Dancers bumped and gyrated on the dance floor and beer sloshed freely over the rims of glasses everywhere.

“Bit frantic about it, aren't they?” Hullabaloo asked. “Trying too hard to be merry.”

“What do you mean?”

Baylou said, “Didn't you hear about that ship? The one that blew up off Kookaburra when it tried to enter the Big A? It was in the news last month.”

Jodenny took a steadying gulp of beer and said, “Thought that was separatists. You know. The Colonial Freedom Project.”

“That's what they want you to think,” Baylou said.

Hullabaloo said, “Don't listen to him. He's a little nervous himself.”

“Nothing's going to go wrong,” Jodenny said.

The wallvids were programmed to show Fortune's system. Fortune was still visible, but only as a small blue and green orb. She thought about her little house in Adeline Oaks, and about Myell out there somewhere in the network, and about all the
Yangtze'
s dead, and raised her glass.

A countdown appeared on the overhead, bright white letters on a sea of blue. The crowd took up the chant.

“Ten … nine … eight…”

They were all shouting now, good-natured, maybe a little frightened, but Jodenny was suddenly happy to be with them and not locked up with Farber in the cabin. Most of this group had long forgotten their school lessons about Jackie MacBride, the first captain to pilot a ship along the Little Alcheringa. But Jodenny raised a glass and made a second toast to Jackie and her crew, lost astronauts from Earth who'd changed the course of humanity with their discovery.

“Just like New Year's Eve,” Hullabaloo said, eyes glittering.

“So kiss me, you fool,” Baylou said.

Jodenny saw Ensign Fila Sadiqi in the crowd, her long hair streaming down her shoulders as she danced in the arms of the galley cook. AT Romero and AT Tingley were perched on stools at the bar, their arms wrapped around each other.

“… three, two, one!”

The ship shifted, ever so slightly. The wallvid went blank, as expected. No stars shone in the Alcheringa. The crowd cheered and kissed and Jodenny sighed in happy relief. The beer in her glass went down smooth and cold, and she turned to order another.

Then the
Kamchatka'
s engines shuddered and failed, and the entire ship plunged into darkness.

CHAPTER
FOURTEEN

The Aboriginal warriors spent the night talking and singing around a campfire at the edge of the petroglyph cave. Myell couldn't understand a word of their quick language, but he very much appreciated the dinner they provided—soft chewy tubers and little brown things he couldn't quite identify.

“Baked grubs,” Nam said.

Myell wasn't very hungry after that.

Gayle spent hours trying to communicate. “Gayle,” she said, laying her hand flat on her chest. “I'm Anna Gayle. My name is Anna Gayle.”

The natives laughed at her efforts and poked at her fair skin and blond hair. Nam watched carefully, tensely. Maybe waiting to see if things would get out of hand. Myell didn't think the Aboriginals posed any risk to Gayle's virtue, but he kept watch as well.

Shark Tooth was fond of his drawing on the floor, and referred to it several times during the evening. Nam said, “He must have seen the lightning hit you.”

Myell squeezed the bridge of his nose. “I wasn't hit by lightning.”

The rain continued overnight. Myell spent a restless night listening to the Aboriginals snore. Two of Shark Tooth's men kept watch, preventing any attempts at escape. Come morning, Shark Tooth led the way out of the cave and up the gully. Already the landscape was changing, turning green. They walked toward the morning sun blistering in the eastern sky.

Nam said, “You wanted to meet the locals, Dr. Gayle. I guess you're going to get your chance.”

Shark Tooth's men began to sing as they walked. After several hours the plateau transitioned to a lush rain forest of tree roots that entangled their feet, mud that sucked at their legs, rot and moss everywhere, nettle plants that Shark Tooth's men beat back with sticks. For hours they continued east with no breaks for food or rest.