She pursed her lips, then smiled. “I’m game. But let’s start slow, and we’ll avoid the personal remarks for the time being, okay?” She cocked her head at him and raised an eyebrow. “You start.”
“Hello, you must be Channa Hap. Welcome to the SSS-900-C.”
“Thank you. I hope I’m not interrupting.”
“Nah, I always have time for a pret . . . colleague.” He detected a slight narrowing of her eyes. “My, you sure are efficient looking.”
“Well, and so are you, you’re so steely and all.”
“Funny, I was just about to say the same thing about you.”
She stood up. “This isn’t going to work.”
“My fault. I shouldn’t have said that. Look, you must be tired from all the travel you’ve been doing. Why don’t you settle in, look around, relax a little—things might look different.”
“This has nothing to do with my being tired or your hormones. . . .”
“What is this fixation you have with my hormones?”
“Shut-up-and-listen-to-me.” Channa was giving him a look that he could almost feel. She paused and held up her hands, sitting down again. “Just listen,” she said earnestly. “I think that it would be best if we put our cards on the table. I haven’t studied your files in full yet,” she admitted with a tired smile. “I just couldn’t make myself do it. But I do know quite a bit about you.” She leaned back and crossed her long legs. “I know that you have a fair amount of influence and a lot of contacts at Central Admin. And I know that you called on just about all of them in the matter of your brawn replacement.” She gave him a severe look. “You made yourself famous on just about every level.”
He was a little lost here. He had kicked up quite a fuss when they forcibly retired Tell Radon, but what did it have to do with her?
“In case you’re wondering why I’m bringing this up,” she continued.
Geeeze, Simeon thought, that’s eerie! She can’t possibly read my mind. Can she?
“It may interest you to know that I have my own contacts at Admin. And they’ve told me that you came up with a list of qualifications that were extremely hard to fill. In fact, I was the only candidate who did fit them, with the glaring exception of the age qualification. I hear that I’m four years too young for this post.”
“Well, you see . . .”
“Excuse me, I’m not finished. I was also told that you went over my service records looking for black marks, and that when you couldn’t find them, you went looking for shadows that you could pretend were black marks. . . .”
“Hey! I don’t know who you were talking to.”
“Bear with me a few moments longer,” Channa said, holding up one finger. “Then you can have your say. I’m not going anywhere.” She looked at his image on the screen for a moment with narrowed eyes, and when he remained silent she nodded. “I’ve been told that all you need do to ruin the day of almost any Admin executive is to mention my name. The feeling you appear to have left behind you as the smoke cleared on this was that where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And that if you, well-known and respected brain that you are, would object so strenuously to my assignment to the SSS-900, despite the fact that I fit all but one of your many qualifications, then there must indeed be something seriously wrong with me.”
“Oh.” He honestly hadn’t thought about that. He’d been so intent on saving Tell from forced retirement that no other considerations had seemed important. Channa Hap as a person had never entered into his thoughts.
Channa continued speaking, “I told myself that it probably wasn’t personal.”
God, it’s weird the way she can pick up on my thoughts like that!
“I told myself to keep an open mind. If you had only greeted me as a fellow professional, then I think I could have let the whole mess be forgotten. But the first words out of your speakers show that either you can’t discern the difference between a compliment and a lip-smacking, smarmy, personal remark, or your campaign to get rid of me continues.”
“Now wait a minute!” Simeon said. She opened her mouth to speak and he overrode her. “It’s my turn. Okay, you said I’d get a turn and I’m taking it.” She raised her brows and gave him an open-handed gesture, giving him the floor. “I don’t know who your informant is, but they’ve got it all wrong. I’m going to assume that you know the system well enough to realize that whoever came up for consideration was going to be gone over with a fine-tooth comb. A space station the size of a small city requires versatility. I’m going to assume that you’re mature enough to know that twenty-six is very young for this posting. Tell was thirty-eight when we came here, and that’s the general age I was looking for. I don’t think, given the importance of the SSS-900, that I’m being unreasonable. But, I suppose that to someone uninformed, the in-depth investigation could look like a campaign to discredit you. That was honestly not my intention, nor is it my intention now. If my greeting was a little too familiar, I apologize, but I had no way of knowing what dark suspicions you were harboring. I’m really very open, Ms. Hap.”
She smiled amiably and nodded. “Mmhm. This entire charming explanation of yours is predicated on the assumption that my informant is someone’s secretary.” She shook her head sadly. “No.”
Gulp, maybe I did go a little far. . . . “Um . . .”
“You can rest easy,” she assured him. “I’m very good at what I do. As you well know, I have an almost perfect record. . . .”
Actually, you do have a perfect record, Simeon thought miserably.
“ . . . so, whether we actually get along or not, the station won’t suffer. And I promise you that I’m not going to just up and disappear on you once you’ve gotten used to me. Because I have it on good authority that, after what you’ve done to my career and reputation, I’d have to bribe and sleep my way into a secondary assignment on the meanest asteroid-mining outpost at the farthest reaches of the explored galaxy.” She rose and said, “I’d like to look at my quarters now.”
“Yeah . . . just,” Simeon slid the door to the brawn’s quarters open, “just settle in. We’ll work this out, Ms. Hap—you’ll see. I’m not as bad as you seem to think I am. I’ll check out your allegations and see if I can make things right. Okay?”
She looked from the open door to Simeon and back again. She sighed as she walked to the door. “No, I think it would be better if you just left things alone for a while.”
“Ms. Hap,” Simeon called. She turned. “When a new brawn comes aboard, station protocol recommends a little informal gathering of the department heads. I’ve arranged one for this evening at 20:00. That is, if that’s all right with you?”
She nodded and smiled. “I think that’s a great idea.” The door to her room slid shut behind her.
Chapter Two
“I can’t keep her level! I can’t keep her level!”
Amos ben Sierra Nueva leaned forward, gripping the edge of the console as if he could force strength down the commlink and the beam to the stricken transport.
“Do not panic, Shintev,” he said, firm but calm. “You are too close to your destination for panic.”
Panic seemed to be the order of the day. The bridge of the Exodus—a minor substation control center for three hundred years—was in pandemonium as the refugee technicians struggled to activate and improvise. There was a hissing puncture right through the pressure hull where they had slammed a steel tube for the coaxial feeds to Guiyon’s shell. None of the big cargo-bay doors were operable so they had had to lash the surface-to-ship transporters to the exterior of the ancient ship and climb in through service-hatch doors. The air was thin and cold, dim with the emergency lighting, full of the smell of fear and sweat and scorched insulation.
“Excellent sir. I think that the enemy has detected us,” a voice said from one corner.
“You think?”
“I am not sure!” the technician wailed, on the brink of tears. “They are moving . . . yes! They have detected us!”
&
nbsp; Amos’ head whipped around. Then the link from the last shuttle began to transmit only a long high-pitched scream. He looked back again to see a face rammed into the pickup, plastered there by centrifugal force. Flesh and pooling blood rippled across the screen before it blanked out.
“They are gone,” Amos said into the sudden hush. “Decouple the remaining shuttles. Prepare for boost.”
Another chorus of screams protested that they were not ready.
“The engines are on-line,” Guiyon’s calm deep voice said. “That will suffice for now.”
Amos turned and punched an override. “Prepare for acceleration! Acceleration in ten seconds from mark. Mark!”
A speck of light blossomed across one of the exterior fields.
“They got Shintev,” somebody whispered. An extra-orbital fighter, bouncing across the surface of the troposphere like a skipped stone had gotten close enough to launch a seeker missile at the out-of-control shuttle.
“Attend to your duty!” Amos snapped. Later there will be time for prayers, and for tears.
Force pushed at the ancient ship. Humming and snapping sounds vibrated through the hull. Exterior feeds showed gantries and constructs bending and breaking under a strain they had never been intended to endure. The ground-to-orbit shuttles were breaking away as well, and a few figures in spacesuits.
Damnation, Amos thought, looking away. They were warned! So many lives rested on his shoulders.
The great cloud-girdled shape of Bethel began to shrink in the rear viewscreen. The visible face of the planet was obscured by dust and flame from the fighting. Acceleration flattened him into his chair as he read figures from the flickering screens.
“Guiyon!” he said. “We are moving too slowly!”
“Peace, Amos. I am trying to—yes, I am venting the life-support tanks.” Tens of thousands of kilotons of water were jettisoned. “That will help us. And hinder the enemy.”
“What force pursues us?”
“Five ships of small to moderate size. I think they are the enemy sentinels. None other are in position or rigged for pursuit.”
“Will they be able to intercept?”
“I do not know. But I must stress the engines, and there will be casualties among the passengers.”
“Do what must be done.”
The weight pressing into his body increased until his bones creaked from the gravity that the antique compensators could not handle. The actual gravity would crush.
Behind the Exodus, half the universe vanished in a blaze of drive energies. The hull did not hum anymore: it creaked, with occasional rending and crashing noises as components which had weakened or reset during the long years as an orbital station came apart under the stress and crashed sternwards. Somewhere a child called for its mother, again and again.
“What can we do?” Amos asked.
“Little, until we clear the gravity well,” Guiyon answered. “Pray, perhaps, since that was your custom?”
One by one, the refugees lifted voices in chant.
Patsy Sue Coburn glanced over at a silk-clad Channa Hap. Channa was sipping champagne and listening politely to a medical officer who had backed her into a corner to tell a story that seemed to involve a lot of cutting motions. The room was full of station bigwigs, section representatives, department heads, company reps, merchanter captains, the odd artist or entertainer. Trays floated about at shoulder height, loaded with beverages, canapés, and stimulants. Everyone seemed filled with a new enthusiasm for conversations they’d had a hundred times before, as if the new brawn had reinvigorated old topics. Patsy Sue felt the warmth of Florian Gusky’s presence even before his deep voice rumbled softly in her ear.
“So . . . what do you think of the new girl?”
Patsy looked at him out of the corner of her bottle-green eyes and flicked back her long blond hair. His jaw was thrust forward and his thick neck was hunched into heavy shoulders, accentuating the rugged cast of his features. A big man and nearly as tough as he thought he was. Gusky was an enthusiast for Revival Games, particularly rugby; he looked ready to tackle Channa.
Or stomp on her with cleats, she thought. “I think the new woman’s elegant,” Patsy replied. And makes me wish I’d been a little more restrained, she added to herself. Her own Junoesque figure was squeezed into a tight red sheath with a deep cleavage and a slit skirt. Her ash-blond hair—her own natural coloring with the barest tint of help from modern technology—was woven with ropes of black pearls.
“I think she’s a snob,” Gusky said decisively.
“She seems a bit reserved,” Patsy allowed. Who wouldn’t be, dropped into this mill-and-swill?
“She seems shallow.”
“What is yer problem? Y‘ lookin’ at the woman like you think she’s got the legs of a cockroach under that gown. I’ve neva known you to make snap judgments. Do you know somethin‘ that needs tellin’?”
He looked into his drink, frowning. “No . . . it’s just . . . Simeon’s awfully quiet.” He looked up at her with concern in his brown eyes. “That’s just not like him.”
She grinned and flicked her blond bangs aside. “Well, this will be quite an adjustment fer him after all,” she said. “He an‘ Tell Radon were together for decades. Maybe he’s missin’ him and doesn’t feel like bein‘ at a party.”
Gus nodded, pursing his lips. “Yeah, or maybe he wants to give her a chance to shine. . . .”
They both looked down for a moment and shuffled their feet. They looked up at the same moment and said, “Simeon?” simultaneously, and then burst out laughing.
“You called?” The familiar image bloomed on a screen beside them.
“Ah! Oh, hi, Sim, we, uh . . . we . . .”
“We were just saying you’re kinda quiet tonight,” Gus finished.
“Well, with most of my senior staff here at the party, I’m sort of pulling double-duty,” Simeon said listlessly. “Excuse me,” and he was gone.
Patsy and Gus looked at each other in amazement, then turned to take a new look at Channa Hap, now being introduced to a cargo specialist.
Gus shook his head. “What did she do to him?”
Patsy smiled. “Trimmed his sails good and proper.”
“This was not a match made in Paradise,” Gus muttered.
“Oh, I dunno,” Patsy said, narrowing her green eyes thoughtfully. “The woman has style, Gus. This place could use some style. Look at this party. When was the last time you came to Simeon’s place and got somethin‘ besides beer and pretzels?”
Gus looked at her in amazement. “What’s that supposed to mean? Are you telling me you can be bought with the right canapés?”
“No. Chocolate truffles maybe, but not synthesized fish eggs on carbo wafers.” At his growl she continued more seriously. “What I’m sayin‘ is, this place is more like a boys’ camp than the hub of culture and science and business that it could be. She’ll shake us up all right, but maybe that’s a good thing. It’s goin’ to get a lot more interestin‘ around here.”
He went back to glowering. Patsy went over to Channa to compliment her choice of the Rovolodorus’ Second Celestial Suite as background music.
“Glad you like it, Ms. Coburn,” Channa said. Her smile had the slightly artificial quality of someone who has spent the last few hours fending off would-be favor seekers. “You’re from Larabie, though, aren’t you?”
“I left,” Patsy replied. “Didn’t like the down-home music there, and I get so sick of the Miner’s Rant and the other Pioneer Stomp stuff Simeon plays. No offense, Simeon.”
“None taken,” a voice said out of the air, the “n” fading into silence.
Channa’s next smile was more genuine. “I’d have thought the chief environmentalist would be in favor of stability,” she said.
“I get so sick of watchin‘ algae breed,” Patsy said, and they both laughed. “Maybe that’s why I had four husbands in a row—just to show I wasn’t a unicellular organism.”
“Goodnight,”
Channa called as the door swished shut behind the last departing guest. The big circular room looked even larger with the crowd gone; the holos on the walls had reset to restful underwater scenes with tropical fish.
She turned toward Simeon’s screen image on the pillar—a brain’s body was there, after all, and it had become a matter of courtesy in brawns to address that position even if the brain could hear them anywhere on the station. She stood a moment leisurely studying the large Sinosian tapestry that was tastefully draped across his column.
“That’s a lovely hanging,” she said at last. “I’ve been admiring it all evening.” She clasped her hands behind her back and walked slowly towards him. “Thank you,” she said softly. “This party was very pleasant, Simeon, and a thoughtful gesture.”
Once you loosened up a little, Simeon thought in some surprise, you were fun, too. If I can just keep you half-tanked, we might be able to get along.
“Well, everyone is more relaxed at this sort of gathering,” he said, “divorced from their official positions. You get to see the social side before you have to contend with the professional.”
She nodded. “I had just enough time before they got here to glance at everyone’s records. I didn’t want to make the same mistake with them that I made with you.”
“You didn’t read my records?”
“No,” she said archly, “I wanted to be surprised.”
“So did I,” he admitted.
She laughed. “Then I guess we do have something in common after all. We can both screw up. Goodnight, Simeon.”
Smiling, she gave one last wave at the column as she went into her room.
She has a nice laugh, Simeon thought, as the door swished closed behind her.
Phew, Channa thought.
She thought again, and took several recondite pieces of equipment out of her bag.
When these showed that the sensors in the walls weren’t activated, she was slightly ashamed of herself for being so uncharitable about Simeon.