Blood of the Cosmos (30 page)

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Later, fully satisfied with their delicious meal, although somewhat disappointed that they had been able to taste only eight of the excellent selections, they returned to the
Verne
and found OK waiting there. The little compy seemed pleased that he had accomplished his covert mission of placing the tracker on Elisa's ship.

He also had intriguing information for them. “The
Verne
received a message from an unknown sender. Terry Handon was tagged with very specific identification codes. The sender knew to locate you here on this ship.”

“Probably somebody trying to sell you something,” Xander teased.

As Terry read the message, his brow furrowed. “Sounds like someone from my old days here at Ulio Station.” He looked at the embedded images—old and obscure photos of himself when he was younger. Xander was amused to see his partner at a much younger age. “It is a little creepy that somebody has those.”

“It's a set of coordinates.” Terry displayed the destination. “We're supposed to go to this point … but it's between star systems. Why would anyone want us out there?” He shook his head. “It says this is urgent.”

Xander knew there wouldn't be much discussion. “Then we have to go.”

 

CHAPTER

46

GARRISON REEVES

Considering its heady history, Rendezvous was an unremarkable sight—a grouping of rocks drawn together in a backwash of gravity, orbiting a red dwarf star called Meyer. But Garrison knew what this place signified, the legends, the culture, and the emotions wrapped up in it, how much it meant to every Roamer clan … and its importance to clan Reeves. For so many years, family obligations had trapped him here, like a deep emotional gravity well.…

After the tragedy that had befallen them, though, he wanted to make sure Seth felt the same understanding, even though the place was full of pain and regret. It was the boy's heritage.

When the
Prodigal Son
arrived at Rendezvous, Seth served as navigator while DD double-checked the boy's calculations. Garrison wasn't surprised that his son nailed the navigation as well as any well-seasoned pilot could have done.

Orli peered out the main windowport. “Just looks like a handful of pebbles in the middle of nowhere.”

“Think of what the people aboard the generation ship
Kanaka
must have thought when they finally arrived here after eight decades in flight.” Garrison couldn't keep the wistful tone from his voice.

Seth piped up, “But the
Kanaka
set up an outpost here anyway. They were resourceful, and they made it work.”

“That's how we started to become Roamers.” Looking at the cluster and the dim red star, Garrison tried to imagine the level of desperation the first colonists had experienced, knowing that if they left here, it would take the slow ship many decades more to reach another, equally unlikely solar system.

The disconnected rocks tumbled along in orbit now. At one point the asteroids had been woven together in an intricate complex connected by support struts, linking tubes, and a cat's cradle of girders. Ships had flown in from across the Spiral Arm to conduct clan business—skyminers and terraformers, imaginative industrialists or just footloose space pilots. It had been the vibrant center of all clan business, the heart of their culture.

“And the Earth Defense Forces destroyed it all,” Orli said. “The Hansa couldn't defeat the hydrogues, so they attacked the Roamers instead.” She shook her head.

Garrison said, “The Roamer clans were outlaws when I was a kid—Seth's age. I remember moving from place to place, and my father held our clan together by brute force. I suppose it was necessary then.” He let out a long sigh. “But he never knew when to loosen his grip.”

The asteroids that comprised Rendezvous were too small to hold a natural atmosphere, but Garrison had felt suffocated for entirely different reasons. He'd finally torn himself away, escaping into the arms of the beautiful and ambitious Elisa Enturi—another bad decision.

Except for Seth. His son was one part of the whole story he did not regret.

“Do what you have to do, Garrison,” Orli said to him now. “I'm here for whatever you need.” She so easily washed away the thoughts of Elisa.

He flew the
Prodigal Son
into a docking bay that yawned open from a deactivated atmosphere field. The asteroid complex had been abandoned for no more than a year, and the automation still functioned with durable and efficient Roamer systems. Lights came on to illuminate the hollowed-out alcove with harsh yellow light, refilling the chamber with air.

When the pressure and temperature read nominal, they emerged from the ship into the oppressive silence. Orli shivered visibly. Garrison stepped closer, putting an arm around her, perhaps as much to comfort himself as to comfort her. “It's all right.”

Rendezvous had seemed so much more welcoming with the bustle of other ships and clan members hurrying about to do their daily work. But that was all gone now.

Orli shook her head. “This place seems haunted to me.”

DD spoke up, “Ghosts have been widely discussed in human culture throughout recorded civilization, Orli, although there is no evidence that ghosts exist.”

“Ghosts don't have to be real to have an effect on people, DD,” Orli said.

The compy paused. “I do not understand.”

Garrison walked ahead. “Most of us don't.”

He saw the abandoned equipment, the supplies, the half-finished reconstruction of a great complex that was saturated with history. “After the war was over, my father wanted to restore Rendezvous to the way it was, but the Spiral Arm was completely changed. He never accepted change.”

The rock corridors were cold, but the power blocks that clan Reeves had installed were long-term energy reservoirs. Even though Olaf Reeves had taken his people far out into uncharted space, the old man had probably still harbored a lingering hope that some other clan, someday, would finish restoring Rendezvous.

Seth bounded ahead with DD trying to keep up as they explored room after room. Garrison took Orli's hand and led her out of the landing bay into the warren of living quarters, quiet, cold. They stopped at the large family complex where his brother Dale had lived with his wife and two sons. Inside the chamber, with the lights restored now, he found only a few scraps, some discarded clothes, a polymer chair with one broken leg, a spaceship toy in the corner. Garrison picked it up, wondering whether Jamie or Scott had left it behind.

For years, Olaf Reeves and his people had worked to reassemble the broken asteroids and broken dreams, linking together some of the tumbling boulders in space. Just because the man was stubborn. So much work for what looked like so little progress …

He remembered hearing Olaf's grand lectures of what this complex had once been and what it had meant to so many people. He had spread out sprawling blueprints and explained sprawling dreams of how he would single-handedly reconstruct this magnificent place … but the original construction had taken place over a century of thriving commerce with the help of countless ambitious families. With a heavy heart, Garrison realized the vast gulf between Olaf's dreams and his capabilities.

He felt deeply sad as he turned to Orli. “The rest of the Roamer clans moved on, joined the Confederation, built a stronger society … but my father didn't want to hear any ideas other than his own.” He hitched a deep breath. “That's what drove me away from him in the first place.”

Garrison guided them through the complex, pausing solemnly in his old quarters. His bed, his storage locker, his desk—all were still there. As the oldest son, he should have been the next clan leader, but he had disappointed his father too much. Now he
was
the leader of clan Reeves … a clan that consisted of himself and Seth. No one else.

Seth came into the lonely chamber with DD, looking subdued. Even the boy felt the same weight on his heart. “I was only here once, but it wasn't so quiet and empty before. It feels wrong.”

Olaf had wanted to fold his grandson into the insular clan, disdaining the education Seth would have received at Academ. Garrison had almost backed down,
almost
decided to follow his family out to deep space. It had taken great courage to turn his back, take his son, and leave again.

That decision had saved Seth's life, as well as his own.

Next they made their way to the administrative chambers, finally stopping in the main offices of Olaf Reeves, where the gruff man had commanded all of his family members. Before, any visit to this lion's den had been an intimidating experience, but now the desk just looked like a desk, and the office looked like any other chamber.

Now that they were here, Garrison wanted to pay his respects, but he didn't know how. Was this some sort of pilgrimage or an expression of atonement? Maybe he just wanted to sharpen his memories of what had been.

He realized that even if he had stayed here rebuilding Rendezvous, even if every member of clan Reeves had devoted their lives to the gigantic project, they would only have begun the task. “Maybe the point of his dream was not to realize it,” he said. “The dream became an end unto itself.”

Orli squeezed his hand. “It's important that you came back here. Were you going to leave a message? Some kind of plaque or memorial?”

He went to the main console on his father's desk, then withdrew a small datapack from the pocket of his jumpsuit. He had copied all of the family farewells here, and he decided the records belonged in Rendezvous, as a memorial to clan Reeves if nothing else.

“These are all the messages my family sent through the green priest, recorded, transcribed, and here to share. Message after message, warnings, apologies, and a lot of goodbyes. It is the only mark they have left.” He inserted the datapack into the console.

He set them playing. The voices of the green priests who had recorded them droned out, speaking the words transmitted to them via Shelud, who had also died on the derelict space city. Different green priests narrated the lives of various dying members of clan Reeves. First Dale, then his wife Sendra, then an engineer named Bjorn Klemmer, then another and another. Garrison had listened to all the recordings—three times, in fact—and he knew they would go on for hours. Orli herself had heard Olaf's last message when she found the Onthos plague station.

As the lives continued to be spoken, Garrison left the loop on repeat. “Anyone who comes here—if anybody ever does—can watch them and hear what happened to clan Reeves.” He looked at Orli. “Their mistakes won't be forgotten, but neither will the people.”

It seemed a small thing now, but it was the only thing he could think of that seemed
significant
enough. “Rendezvous itself is the grandest memorial clan Reeves could ever ask for. We'll leave it at that.”

Orli nodded. “I think we should.”

 

CHAPTER

47

ARITA

On warm nights, Arita liked to sleep on her open balcony in the fungus-reef city. In the dark silence, sapphire condorflies would buzz past, large iridescent insects with a wingspan as broad as her outstretched arms. Tiny fireflies like flitting stars sparkled throughout the canopy, and the undulating thrum of night insects made for a peaceful lullaby.

Her slumbers were not always quiet, though.

After a restless muddled sleep, Arita awoke on the balcony with a buzzing, bone-deep sound ringing through her body, like chimes, incomprehensible music unlike anything she had heard before. She saw nothing nearby, only the haze of sunrise seeping through the dense trees. She felt disoriented, still hearing the whispers of a dream inside her mind. She didn't know what had happened, and it was fading from her sleep memory quickly.

She clearly recalled hearing a rushing sound of myriad voices speaking all at once inside her head, telling her important things that she could not now recall. Arita rubbed her eyes. She had seen visions of stars, rivers of suns along the arms of the Galaxy, nebulae shining in all the bands of the electromagnetic spectrum, like a primordial sea of the universe itself, giving birth to … something incomprehensible.

Her head ached now, and she was sure she had only seen the barest hint of what was out there trying to contact her. And amid that sense of indefinable wonder, she also felt a dread, a plea of some sort. Something desperately looking for help.

Ever since Ohro had hinted that Arita might be sensitive to some exotic and distant communication that had nothing to do with the verdani mind, she had hoped. The worldtrees had rejected her bid to become a green priest, but in doing so they had altered her thought patterns. After that painful disappointment, Arita wanted to believe she was special in a different way—but that didn't make the idea true.

As she struggled awake on her soft balcony, listening to the stir of worldtree fronds in the breezes, she didn't think her dream whispers came from the trees at all. No, something had
spoken
to her while her mind was vulnerable and unguarded, deep in the uncharted realm of sleep.

But the more she tried to remember, the faster it all slipped through her mental fingers. By the time Arita climbed to her feet, blinking in the faint colors of dawn, it was just an echo of a dream.

She stretched, rubbed her eyes, and wondered if she should tell Reyn. She had no secrets from her brother, and he would believe her unconditionally when she told him about the voices in her head. He wouldn't call her crazy, even if she insisted that weighty whispers were trying to communicate with her.…

Later, she ate breakfast with her family out in the open, drinking steaming cups of klee as they looked out into the thick branches. Two condorflies swooped about in an aerial dance, like a pair of Remora fighter craft.