Time Past (37 page)

“You finish,” grunted the guard.

“Yes,” said Barik.

“No...” The guard’s hot hand crushed the word against my lips and he dragged me away.

In the crawler we squished together, their armor digging into my back and hips through the thin material of the dress uniform. My arm and shoulder burned from where the guard twisted it. The pain, the heat, and the combined odors of their breath made my head spin. Don’t faint, they’ll probably drag you along by the heels.

More corridors. Level Three? Each time I tried to look around, another tug nearly floored me.

Then we were staring out an airlock, floating through a narrow gray tunnel, no friendly EarthFleet blue here. A standard shuttle, troops saluting. Pinned immobile in an inertia net. The three-g breakoff threatened to squeeze my eyelids shut but I forced them open, desperate for one last glimpse of the white rings of home spinning against the stars.

Twenty-eight

I
did all right until they stripped me.

Kept quiet when the shuttle’s rough landing threatened to scramble my insides; ignored jibes from the lieutenant in charge of escorting me to an “interview” room on the cruiser; remembered to insist I was now a civilian and to request legal counsel. They didn’t listen, of course, but it made me feel better to keep repeating who I was. It helped me delude myself that this would eventually be sorted out and we could return to normal.

Resigning hadn’t been an option until the words left my mouth. I felt unsettled, as an object placed in a cabin in free fall will nudge the same spot for a while before floating away around the room. I’d been in ConFleet for twenty-three years, mostly in the Engineering Corps, which contained few Bendarl and little military ceremony. If I’d been in other arms of ConFleet, maybe I wouldn’t have remained for so long.

As for An Barik’s words about Serat and
Farseer,
I didn’t know how to interpret them. He may have meant
Farseer
’s combination of Tor and Invidi technology was inherently unstable, and I could well believe it. I didn’t think active Tor technology would be content to combine peacefully with any other system. Or he might have been saying that to discourage me from trying the same thing. As I’d almost contemplated when considering how to save information on
Farseer.

I thought of my efforts to map
Farseer
’s system—would the Bendarl have simply removed the ship with my handcoms inside? Or would they have cleaned out all evidence of human use? More damn waste of time. I should have risked frying my brains in that direct connection in the hope of getting information more quickly.

Could
Farseer
really open jump points, perhaps the way the Tor did? It would explain the discrepancy in the coordinates when we left 2023. We hadn’t entered the jump point already there because we’d made a new one. But that meant there were two jump points from 2023 to 2122, both of ninety-nine years’ duration. If my theory about the radiation surge on May 16, 2023, was correct, only one of those points would survive another day. But then if
Calypso
used the remaining point in 2027, why did its correspondence shrink from ninety-nine years to ninety-five? All our experience of the jump points says they do not change length. So
Calypso
should have emerged in 2126.

I wish I’d never seen a jump drive.

When the sergeant told me to drop my clothes so they could do a full body search, I lost it completely. I yelled at him for counsel, for a medical officer, for an officer of any sort. It did me no good, and instead of one of them doing it without fuss, two of them held me down so the sergeant could get at me. Nothing personal, of course, with Bendarl. They didn’t care who they hurt. Their claws scratched my skin and I cried more from the indignity and pain of their grip on my arms and legs than from the primitive medical probe they used.

After they were done, I shook with humiliation and anger in the corner of the room farthest from them, arms wrapped around myself, torso goose-bumped, knees trembling. It wasn’t cold that made me shiver—Bendarl temperature controls were set several degrees hotter than humans found comfortable. It was knowing that I had been used as a tool in some Invidi game of temporal politics. Barik’s involvement made that obvious.

Fear for Murdoch settled in a cold lump in my stomach. Had they arrested him as well?

Eventually the Bendarl soldiers hustled me, still naked, out into the gray corridors. The corridor lights glared too bright for human eyes. Every shadow showed black and distorted by the conduits and control points along walls and ceilings. Round, cramped doors marked corridor sections, designed to be easily defended or airlocked if necessary. We walked—rather, I stumbled. The Bendarl used the Invidi gravity field at slightly stronger than Earth normal. It dragged at my body as the situation dragged at my spirits.

The idea of trying to escape made me feel sick. Yet I wouldn’t get a better chance. The ship hadn’t jumped back to Central. I had worked on vessels of this class before and knew their back corridors and access networks. Only two marines accompanied me and they hadn’t bothered to restrain me—probably the ease with which they’d held me down persuaded them I wasn’t much of a threat. But once they put me in a proper brig cell, any chance of escape would vanish.

A shrill, insistent whoop made us all jump. Decompression alert. I hadn’t heard it for years, but it sent me instantly swinging around to locate the nearest spacesuit locker and emergency shaft.

One of the marines cursed and ran to a comm panel at the end of the corridor. The other, like me, looked around for the emergency locker that should be halfway down every corridor.

Forget the alarm. The guards aren’t looking at you.

I took four long strides to the closest maintenance hatch that opened, as I knew it would, with a quick twist, push, and pull. Convenient how the Bendarl mistrust new technology.

The closest marine roared with rage and charged behind me.

A tight fit—I scraped my shoulders, hips, backs of thighs on the rough edges. Convenient, too, that the Bendarl use robots or humans for maintenance work. They’d never get through that hole themselves.

In my panic to set the hatch on auto again, I slammed the marine’s stubby, clawed digits. His roar of rage turned to one of pain. I couldn’t turn properly in the shaft and had to brace my legs on both sides of the hatch and bend backward.

The marine snatched his hand away, almost opening the hatch, but I kept hold and closed it. Keyed in a half-remembered, half-habitual code scramble with shaking fingers.

Get away from this area because this was where they’d start looking. The alarm still rose and fell, echoing up the shaft from a lower level. Whatever had caused a Grade One alarm, I hoped the crew was not abandoning ship while I sat here in the dim heat, a switch digging into my left buttock.

I was perched in a small, spherical space, hemmed on all sides but one by surfaces covered with snaking connections, many of them active and glowing. The open shaft stretched down with no friendly ladder like on Jocasta. I swore under my breath and wished the gravity field to hell. They must use maglev belts in these shafts, or service bots. If I wanted down I’d have to jump or climb.

A blow on the hatch at my back vibrated through the surfaces above and below me and a couple of status indicators flickered.

I stuck my feet gingerly down into the shaft, toes feeling for a hold.

The hatch exploded in my ear. I slid, and only halted the drop by bracing shoulders and knees against the sides of the shaft. Oh, hell, hell and damnation. I shut my teeth around a scream as prickles of electricity ran between my shoulders, leaving them numb and my heart racing.

In the uncertain glow I could see the hatch was still intact, despite the noise. That stupid marine must have loosed off a shot at the controls and fused them nicely. It would take them hours to get the hatch open.

A security detail would be waiting for me wherever this shaft ended. Too much to hope they’d all be too busy with the alert to have time to track one human signal on internal sensors. Unless, and I almost laughed at the thought, unless it was an outside attack and not a problem with the ship’s systems, which was what I’d assumed. If someone was attacking, my place was back on the station, not stuck here in some goddamn tunnel.

I had to get out of here, find a uniform, and mix my sensor readings with the fifteen hundred or so individuals of whom, if the cruiser was an average ship, between five and fifteen percent would be human. Mostly in the service areas. Some pilots, too. Humans were small, expendable, and functioned well with interface enhancements.

A lateral shaft at last. I slid the last couple of meters down and pulled myself horizontal with a sob of relief. Don’t think about how much you hurt and what you’re going to do when you get out. Don’t think about the alarm that still vibrates around you. Concentrate on where the shaft leads and how to crawl along it without getting burned or electrocuted.

I never realized how much difference even a single layer of cloth makes between flesh and the world of syntal, glass, and wire. Right now I’d welcome even a dress uniform. I’d kill for a pair of boots. Like the ones a certain group of men in the out-town used to wear as a badge of solidarity. Most of them hadn’t worked for months or years. But they all boasted battered, heavy boots. Vince had a pair. I’d surprised him one day in the courtyard, rubbing gravel into the toes and heels to achieve that rugged look.

I peered at the ID beside a control panel and stopped, glad of an excuse to rest. Deck Twelve, Section Fifty-two. These big warships were fifteen to twenty decks deep. Deck Twelve would be crew quarters, and as far as I could remember, Section Fifty-two contained Stores or Recreation or some such low-priority area. A good place to avoid detection, and one they would hardly expect me to visit.

I could get some clothes there, and find a way to get off the cruiser before it jumped. I’d take an escape pod at a pinch, but I’d prefer something with a bit of thruster power I could steer. And go where? I didn’t know, but back to the station sounded good. Or over to the asteroid belt where I could hide for a while.

What did it matter, I just needed to get out of this tunnel.

The shaft shuddered and the jolt found every bruise and scrape in my knees, hands, shoulders. Engine hum faltered, then resumed on a higher note. They’d rerouted power through the shielded generators. We must be under attack, after all. But who were we fighting? The only threat in this sector was from organized pirates. The New Council had no ships that could seriously challenge ConFleet. Unless they’d brought the Q’Chn to fight, because all the Q’Chn needed to do was get close enough to board. But who would fight over Jocasta or the Abelar system?

At least we wouldn’t be jumping out of the system anytime soon—combat mode protocols were specific to flat-space. So if I could get to a shuttle undetected, I might be able to escape and elude pursuit. Into the middle of a battle, what fun.

It didn’t occur to me to doubt the outcome of the combat. Nothing in the known galaxy could stand against Con-Fleet; another reason for Confederacy stability. Bendarl were called the “wolves of space” for good reason. I’d worry about the enemy once I found a pod.

Another jolt pushed me against the shaft wall. A sharp shock fell like a lash across my shoulders and the shock constricted the cry in my throat. My heart jumped against my ribs with a will of its own.

At the same time a hissing noise drowned out all other sounds and an acrid smell drifted up behind me. Coolant leak. Now I’d need detox treatment, on top of everything else.

Holding my breath, I scrambled away from the leak. Deck Twelve was fine, anywhere except this tunnel was fine. All I wanted was to get out of that shaft, put some clothes on, and find out what was happening.

The first two hatches stuck. Or they were locked. Or the alert plus coolant leak had activated an emergency override. By the time the third hatch cover glowed beside me, the shaft seemed to be getting darker and narrower. My hand on the hatch handle seemed to twist like when you try and move something in zero-g and find yourself moving instead... concentrate, turn the handle.

The hatch swung outward and I followed it in a heap on the deck, unable to control my muscles enough to brace them against the fall.

Too bright. I was in a narrow room, same gray walls and low ceilings as the rest of the ship. Handholds on floor and ceiling indicated this was not always gravitized. I pulled myself up and pushed the hatch shut with an immense effort. The long wall of the room was a curious honeycomb structure. I limped over to investigate and found they’d changed the locker design. Judging by the names and size, I’d found a locker room for humans. Either that, or the morgue.

The lockers were set to open only to the owner’s handprint. I leaned against them, too tired to curse, fingers too unsteady to consider trying to reset the locks. The alarm still sang, but it had settled to a slow and regular mid-tone blare. Alert and Action Stations. I had no idea how long I’d been in the shaft—it felt like hours.

An oval doorway stood around the corner from the lockers. I dabbed at its “open” pad and the door swished back. I jumped in fright, for the room beyond was filled with gaseous murk, then laughed at myself for being scared of a shower. Real water, to judge by the steam.

Nothing better. It would hurt like hell, but I’d get rid of most of the coolant traces on my skin. The internal damage would have to be dealt with later.

Four jets of warm, brackish water hit me from above, below, and two sides, a walk-through soaking. The warm, damp smell of floral scrub solution filled my nostrils. By the time I’d finished the ten paces to the end my head was spinning with pain.

“Wow, what happened to you?” A voice in my ear made me jump again.

A young human woman peered through the steam at me. Round eyes, broad nose from which rivulets dripped down to a generous mouth. A mouth pursed in an “ooh” of sympathy at the weals and burns all over me.