Pushing back long strands of blonde hair, Rhine wrapped one hand around the other, squeezing. "She's healthy and stable. We inoculated her and I see no reason she couldn't enter the job pool for her six month stints like the rest of us. She's already learning modern language and conveniences--she seems more at home than I do, sometimes. But there's just something I feel when I'm with her . . . ." Matt watched Rhine wring her fingers, then roll her hands around each other in a soothing rhythm. Dry skin rasped softly with each stroke.
He chewed on the inside of his cheek. Who was this returned sleeper, that so many people showed interest in her awakening? Anyone she'd known would be dead, or ancient now. Yet word came to him through secret channels to act, to influence and nudge proceedings. He'd never attempted anything like that before. Thrilled and sick, but mostly amazed that he could indeed change events if he desired to, Matt experienced a fission of energy, as if he could use newfound power for more than just following instructions. Tempted, he wrapped a hand around Rhine's, stilling the rasping motion. She gasped, looking down at the warm contact.
People rarely touched in this time, yet the arrival of a woman from the past brought contact and lies. Well, lies hadn't gone extinct, he admitted to himself. But he'd rarely used them outside of social niceties. Now, they'd asked him to be duplicitous. Could he do it?
Heart pounding, he released Rhine's hands, patting them as he did so to cover his blunder. She blushed and looked up between long lashes. Confused, he swallowed words of confession. They'd said the hibernator needed to go; that she was dangerous. If only he'd been assigned to her instead of Rhine! His jaw firmed. The woman from a bygone era of violence and lies must go. The sooner, the better.
As if she'd heard him, Rhine replied. "That doesn't seem very charitable. The edge is wild. Unexplored." She shivered, her eyes meeting his. Her hands hung in the air between them, still, as if she hoped he'd touch them once more.
"But it's where she belongs," Matt's eyes met hers, steady, since this much he believed true.
"I suppose. I can't imagine it, but if you suggest it it's probably a good idea." She waited, as if expecting something more, then left shaking her head. She cupped one hand in the other.
Matt slipped into the observation room to monitor the topic of their conversation. This was what all the fuss was about?
A woman sat silently, bored, playing with a tablet they had left on the table. Slender, but with well-defined muscles beneath a simple white sheath, her red hair flamed over her shoulders. She looked relaxed enough. Was she as simple as she seemed? Sweet and pretty--her blue eyes unfocused as she daydreamed. He shook his head and turned away. Whatever her secrets were, let them deal with them on the borders of mankind's space. She wasn't welcomed here.
In the comfortable room they monitored, Kay's eyes narrowed in catlike concentration and relaxed once more as she caught herself. Mustn't let them know she felt them watching her. Muscles relaxed. Breathing evened out. The computer still noted elevated levels of hormones in her brain, but had they suspected the real level to which she watched and waited the psychologists would have been horrified. Likely they'd have sedated her, and certainly would have chalked it to more than remnants of a paranoid time. Though it stretched modern imagination, they might even have dimly conceived the possibility that she was capable of violence. Had known, even perpetrated, violence in the past.
Had lived by the sword.
Meanwhile, she waited, her mind filled with plans and suspicions. Could they be this docile? They had apologized a million times for wanting to know where she had come from. The shy psychologist, Rhine, begged her pardon for intrusive questions and seemed reluctant to continue. They called this an interrogation? No, an evaluation, she reminded herself, and their sincerity couldn't even be questioned. But if she knew anything from a few centuries leapfrogging through space and the cultures that filled it, it was that such breezy sweetness needed iron security to exist. Someone, somewhere, knew to ask the hard questions.
Had they found her yet?
Kay stopped her train of thought and consciously controlled her biofeedback. Heartbeats thudded with regular precision, counted and imagined as drumbeats that filled the room and covered the tick-tock of thought. Tricking the chair's sensors, she hoped. Keeping her nature secret was second-nature. They didn't even know just how far she'd traveled. Their estimates were centuries off, since they counted back only to the age of the vessel she'd been found in. And all the better for their mistake.
The more mistakes, the longer it would take for her to be discovered. The hunt was on once more.
Footsteps approached, a pair of them, though she recognized Rhine's whispered tread and what must be a slightly heavier man.
Moments later Rhine poked her head in the room and cocked it. "Hey, why not come with me."
Kay rose and approached, too eager. The psychologist fell back, a hand fluttering to her neckline. The man with her, who wore a tag with the simple name Matt, glared. They seemed so young, but she suspected they were older than she was, just untried.
Kay slowed, smiling. "Where are we going?"
Matt said, "You're going to the edge. We're sending you on a ship whenever you're ready."
She halted in her tracks, "Sir. I'm ready now."
Matt and Rhine said goodbye to Kay at the loading zone. Matt admired the way Kay squared her shoulders and marched onto the craft, as if she risked new situations every day. Perhaps she knew she was going where she belonged.
The transport, filled with base materials and the patents that would shape them, pulled away from the station with Kay aboard. In a few weeks it would dock with the Hartung, a converted military vessel now used to transport colonists and protect the border.
Rhine grabbed his hand, her fingers tangling with his. "Poor thing, being sent to the edge. Why--that's where everything happens!"
The unexpected was exhausting, but it had rewards. Matt smiled and squeezed her hand.
* * *
Thrilling! From space Kay could see the chunky lines of the Hartung. Within the more recent modifications she recognized the elegant lines of the old military beamer she'd helped design just one or two awakenings ago. Onto it, they'd piled newer technology, swapping out bits of the chambered design as mankind advanced. But she was still recognizable, still useful. Just like me, Kay thought.
That glimpse of buried bones from her past, something familiar, renewed her. She tilted her head, studying the large cargo hold, but once again detected nothing more than supplies for the Hartung. Massive blocks of dark material scented the hold with the tang of old pennies. Nearer, mounds of bagged organic matter that could be reconstituted made a crunchy seat for the trip. Her trip was unplanned, she realized. She'd truly been left alone. A coil deep inside her released, and she raced toward the porthole, trying to discern more about what came next. Excitement, long suppressed, bubbled inside her. I can't wait to see what's new! What's that next to the solar sail? Did they give up on the alien power grid? She shivered and wrapped arms around her middle, content to be alone with the promise of so much progress waiting just outside the airlock. Control, maintained since awakening within her hibernation chamber, shattered. Her pulse pounded, laughter burst out. She'd survived once more! Kay spun in a circle.
The airlock clinked into place and a light illuminated the hold in an amber glow. Connection made. People waiting to see this relic of the past. More eyes, more questions, and the threat of a spy sent by her longtime enemy. Her spin stilled, fabric brushing her ankles.
Keep a low profile, that's all. I'll learn everything new so I don't fall too far behind, and then prepare to sleep again. It's just one more stop along the way.
She straightened the white robe-things they'd dressed her in, reminded of pajamas, or something an asylum patient from the 20th century would wear, but in this new time it might be positively avante garde. Huffing out a breath and rolling her eyes, she dropped the thin fabric. Go with the flow, she reminded h
erself. Think too hard, remember too much, and you'll get bogged down. This is just one more time in an endless chain leading you to your future. It's out there, closer than ever. Another century, maybe two, and I'll have my answers. She swallowed questions and raised her chin. The door slid back with a tiny huff of air as pressure normalized between the two vessels.
Keep a low profile, that's all.
* * *
Sec paced the bridge. Trainees sweated at their stations, projecting a veneer of calm but whispering like children in a library. Their anxiety ratcheted his nerves even higher, since he knew what they didn't. The first test of their skills was imminent.
He'd scheduled the training crew during his shift. They needed experience -- and fast. Training at Central couldn't compare to reality. Sure, most of these kids were from border planets. Adventurous, and likely aching to get away from new agricultural settlements, they'd volunteered to come to the edge where generations of Psi Corps trainees hadn't yet predicted every small movement. How Centrals survived in that claustrophobic cushion of certainty, well it boggled a thinking man's brain.
Gritting his teeth, he gripped a railing. Some of the trainees glanced his way. Naria, on navigation, looked positively fearful. Perhaps his reputation preceded him. Good. He didn't bear the trainees any ill-will, just needed to get them trained up as fast as possible. These kids accepted the risks. They'd get knocked around a bit then toughen up. Not like the Central he'd heard arrived with the last supply delivery. Now, there was a job he didn't relish; acclimating a Central to the realities of the edge? She was likely incoherent in the medical bay by now.
Mentally counting down, though he glared and loomed as usual, Sec noticed as Nile led someone into the room like a magician presenting his assistant.
"Permission?" Nile asked, hardly waiting as he swept a gorgeous red-head into the command center.
Sec grunted, eyeing the woman.
Her blue eyes slid along the instruments, pausing to study a display here and there as if she were reading the information from where she stood. Her restrained movements reminded him of the old travelers packed onto small space vessels who had learned to live with a minimum of room.
"This is Kay. Central shipped her in on the last supply transport."
"The hibernator?" Sec's doubt showed. "How'd you end up showing her around?"
Nile colored at the speculation, enthusiasm never flagging, and dropped his voice. "She says she has a boyfriend, but she just woke up from a hundred year sleep. If he's still alive, I don't think the guy will be much competition. I think it's her way of holding out for time to acclimate. So, I'm helping! I'm a helpful guy." He squinted defensively.
Sec's eyes narrowed. Kay's hand rested possessively on the back of the Captain's chair.
"Could I see our location?" she asked.
Sec's scowl deepened, sensing she'd chosen her target perfectly. Captain Mark, relegated to the border by politics that would never change, would indulge her. His grandfatherly streak, peaking with the addition of the eager trainees, made him happy to show off. He called up a star map, rotating it and pointing out interesting anomalies. Since Kay hadn't seen anything in the region, crewmembers called out comments. A celebratory air lifted them, somehow. She encouraged their stories with barely a word, just a tilt of the head or twitch of lip, but Sec sensed she hung on their every word and impression. At an offhand suggestion from her, Captain Mark zoomed the perspective of the map outward, pointing to systems even further out than their own border position. Gold, red, green, and purple spots of interest gleamed. Binary systems twirling like sparks, twisting between asteroid belts of marble, and dim red giants expanded in artistic representation of reality.
The intensity of Kay's interest revealed itself in her avid eyes and tense muscles. Her body remained upright but her soul leaned in. Niles blinked rapidly, staggering. "Did you see that?"
"No?" Sec replied.
"I'd swear for a moment there I saw a projection of a man. He stood, backlit in a wave of red light. His hair gleamed gold, and his arms were open."
"Having visions now, old man?" Sec joked, hiding his concern.
Niles's spine became poker straight. He lifted his nose at the insinuation. "I've got a P-ratings of 5. I'm not Psi-corps, but I pick up useful things now and again."
"My intuition's pretty good, too, and we're in for some trouble now. So step back, and take your tourist with you." Sec moved into position. Captain Mark saw his junior officer's face and sighed.
Within Captain Mark's framing hands, the view shrank back down to the ship, showing its course passing close to a sun, though not dangerously so. Trainees gawked, drawn in by the display. Well, all the better for them to learn to stay focused, Sec thought grimly. Still, he passed an inquiring look to the science station.
"Huh? Oh, there's a fair amount of solar activity, sir." The science officer reported, confirming his biggest concern, but too late to reschedule the scenario now.
Overhead, the alarm blared.
Captain Mark tapped the arm of his chair, "Change course away from the sun. Full power for the turnabout."
Naria, the girl in the front at the free-standing engine power console gasped. "My console's dead."
Of course it was. Sec let her gape for a moment, hoping she'd collect herself. This was only the first step of the emergency.
"Manual override," he prompted, gripping the railing.
"I . . . I can't." She pushed feebly at the display. "No response."
Trainees rushed around, pointless until Naria routed power to them.
The trainee next to her, Hernes, fiddled with his own console then reached across to help.
"Hernes." Sec warned, but it was too late.
"Here," Hernes slid his chair next to hers at the console, "It's got to be the power."
"Hernes, that isn't your station," the junior officer reprimanded. Safeties were offline for this exercise.
Captain Mark lolled back, whistling something. Warning lights blinked above each console, but he'd silenced the alarm.
Ignorant of the specifics for the larger ship's solar capacity, and untrained for the power engineering console, Hernes opened the power up full while the solar collectors were pointed at the flaring sun. Sparks shot out, knocking both trainees to the ground.
Captain Mark jerked upright, mouth falling open.
Naria staggered to her feet, but Hernes didn't.
Sec released the railing, "Naria, we need full power."
She stared at the sizzling console. "It's unresponsive, sir. The interface is melted." If anything, she seemed calmer now that there wasn't anything she could do.
Sec checked his own console. There was no one in Engineering, since no alarm had sounded. The magnitude of the problem swept over him in a cold wave. Their sweet ship was an aged lady. She'd seen technical revolutions and her very life's blood had changed several times. When she'd been created she'd been a swift and sweet Chambered Lady with the new superconductive wiring acquired from their allies the Scillians. The hollow chambers running like vents through the walls of the ship served as a heat sink and as protection from the knifelike superconductors. The experiment failed, forcing subsequent rewiring with conventional fiber cables, and again after that with synthetic threads. Not every section of the ship had been rewired with each renovation, and the different wires ran into each other from one section of the ship to the next. It was a constant headache. Now the alien superconductors had unloaded into at least one of the other, lower capacity wirings. The console was probably molten under its casing.
Captain Mark worked at overrides to their disabled safeties. Other stations bustled as well, dimming and rerouting power. Excellent responses, if they weren't fried to a crisp in the next few minutes.
They needed to turn.
The ship was going to pass far too close to the sun, causing damage to the hull, the solar collectors, and the matter collectors. People in the outer hull could be seriously injured. <
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Naria struggled with the lock to the display top of the smoldering console while Sec moved to the communications station to re-establish a link to the stand-by monitor for Engineering. He regretted their informal system of assignment.
No one responded.
"The alarm?" Kay asked, moving to a position beside the captain.
"Is only on the bridge," Sec confirmed from his station across the room. "Safeguards were intentionally offline for the exercise, but certain defaults shouldn't have been. We've been sabotaged. Be useful, help Hernes."
Kay and Niles moved forward, but only Niles knelt next to Hernes's folded body.
Captain Mark watched the view screen, calm. How unfair that it was Sec's job to worry. He was doing his job overtime right now.
Ignoring Naria, Kay crossed to that woman's console. Yanking a sleeve from her white dress, she wrapped it around her hands. Sec looked up from the still empty screen and gaped.
The strange woman grabbed the top of the console and yanked it from its housing. Metal shredded in her hands. Alloy crackled and flakes of it spattered her arms. Rather than stop there, she tore the entire frame from the floor and knelt. Molten metal poured from the base of the console and bubbled underneath. She dug past the first layer of liquid metal under the floor of the console. The vacuum of space, channeled in vents throughout the ship, lay somewhere underneath them. Her fingers searched. Sec held his breath as she lifted. Bare wire, fibers, and cables snaked in front of her, a mishmash of borrowed technology spanning ages. She grabbed two of the clear blue synthetic lines in her hands, stripping and combining. They sizzled as she held them in place.
"That's got it, we've turned away." Sec yelled, leaning over Hernes's abandoned console. Kay dropped the wires, shaking her burned hands. Heated chemical fumes filled the command center. Open-mouthed faces stared at her. The metal console lay destroyed at her feet.