Children of Hope (72 page)
Authors: David Feintuch
I muttered, “You’ve got that right.” I curled into a fetal ball. In the failing air, I drifted and dreamed. Laboriously, I put the pieces together. There, for Fath. There, for Kevin. There, for Dad and Anthony. There, for Mr Branstead.
An outrider brandished a gray appendage, turned me slowly, scrutinizing me through my suit.
ONE-ARM DIE?
The first Harry had died, his replacement had told us. Perhaps they assumed that on my death, we’d merely send another envoy.
No, we had no telepathy. What one human knew wasn’t automatically provided to us all.
I uncurled myself, scratched with the stick. “One-arm die one hour.” Or thereabouts.
The irony was, given a bit of air, a little time, I could still put it together.
But did I dare? I served in the U.N. Navy only by Fath’s edict. I had no authority, no right. My head swelled by Dad’s example and Anth’s foolish tolerance. Mr Tolliver had known how to handle me; after his most painful caning, I wouldn’t dare cross him soon.
Well, he was under arrest now, with Fath.
So, joeyboy. Shall you, or not?
I drifted in the zero-gee cocoon of the fish, and planned my treason.
“Humans trade salt.” I panted, as if making a long speech. Silly; my lips had barely moved. I wielded my writing stick.
YES
. Quivering emotion.
“Humans not trade salt / hand. Not trade salt / ship.”
Emotion. It didn’t look like joy. Perhaps consternation. The chamber seemed crowded. More and more outriders wriggled through the permeable membranes, finding a roost on deck, bulkheads, overhead.
TRADE? NOT TRADE?
“Ships Fuse,” I said, writing.
YES.
One outrider seemed to have become the spokesman. The others merely watched.
“Fish Fuse.”
YES.
“Fish Fuse outriders.”
YES
.
“Fish Fuse ships?”
NO UNDERSTAND
.
“Fish Fuse human nutrient?” Can you take a cargo?
SHIP FUSE HUMAN NUTRIENT
. Well, yes. But that was beside the point.
“Fish fuse human nutrient, human rock-bomb?” It was the closest I could come to “ore.”
YES
. I could have sworn the tone was doubtful. Something in the stroke of the “equals” …
“Time Fuse …” This was going to be tricky. I could only think of one place we both knew. “Time fish one-arm planet Fuse hundreds-of-dead-fish, dozens-of-dead-ships?” How long to home system? If we’d made a word for it, I’d forgotten. By the time I’d spelled it out, I was panting. I made a new symbol for home system, pointed to the phrase. Now we’d have a word.
.
He’d used hours; of course the number was large. I’d have to convert …
No, make him do it. “Time Fuse planet say month.” We’d built on seconds, gone as high as a year.
MONTH. MONTH. MONTH. MONTH. MONTH.
Six and a half months. Far less than our ships. I breathed.
“Thank you. God, if You exist, thank You too.” It wasn’t blasphemy, was it, if… no time for that now.
“One-arm trade salt / Fuse human rock-bomb. Fuse nutrient.
NOT UNDERSTAND. NO. FEAR. NO. ONE-ARM DEAD. WAR
.
I swallowed. I’d known the risk. “Human not trade hand, not trade ship. Human trade Fish Fuse.”
HURT FISH
.
“Not understand.”
SHIP FUSE, TASTE HURT FISH. OUTRIDERS
“Is one-arm fish
YES.
I licked my lips. “You joeys did something to your fish, didn’t you? So our Fusing wouldn’t drive them mad and attract them. They’re blinded, or deafened. For some reason, you can’t send altered fish to home system.”
“No-
YES. NO.
The outrider skittered.
NO-
“Good.”
But he wasn’t done.
SHIP FUSE. FISH HURT. FISH WAR SHIPS.
“You’ll send them, and they’ll hear us Fuse, and go mad.” I frowned. “They’re out.” I drew, “
FISH FUSE FUSE FUSE GO PLANET. DIE NO SALT.
“But we have—they have plenty—oh, joey, it’s going to be all right!” One last writing. “Home system humans trade salt, here humans trade salt. No war.”
OUTRIDER TELL BIG OUTRIDER TRADE. ONE-ARM SAY TRADE HUMAN SHIP. NO WAR ONE HOUR.
We have a deal. Let’s each tell our side. One hour truce.
“Hang on.” I had all the pieces. I keyed my suit radio.
ONE-ARM SUIT YES?
“Ship’s Boy Carr to
Olympiad.
Respond—
SUIT YES?
“Yes, the helmet’s sealed! Let me be for a—” As one, the outriders dissolved into the fish’s flesh. The fish pulsed. Colors swirled.
“What the—
”
Pulse.
“Hey, wait!”
PULSE.
In the portholes, the stars disappeared. I blanched. We were Fused.
G
OD, IT’S ME. RANDY. IT’S
dark and I’m feeling a touch frightened. More than a touch. I’m not … I haven’t been … I don’t know how to do this; I’ve never prayed in earnest. Do You just listen, or do You intervene? ’Cause if You intercede, I need it now. Not for me. No, I really mean that. I don’t know how many lives ride on my … hundreds, certainly. Thousands. Probably millions. For them, would You …
I don’t know what I’m asking for. To let me finish this, I suppose. Fath says You’re real. I so want You to be, especially now. Can You hear me crying silently, inside my helmet?
Did You comfort Philip Tyre, in his wretched last moments? If You won’t help me finish, would You do as much for me? What was it Tyre said, in the humility that comes when all is lost? “I was an awful shit.” God … Sir? I can’t bring myself to admit it to Fath, or Mr Tolliver, but, Sir … I was an awful shit. To Anth, to Fath. I always wanted my way, rarely stopped to listen. Even more rarely did I do as I was told. Now I’m getting what I deserve. I’m really afraid there’s a Hell, and You’ll send me to it. If I promised, would …
No, I said I wouldn’t beg. Not for myself. I’ll pay my debts, and take the Hell. But might You help undo our muddle? Or somehow, let me do it, before I’m over?
If You hear me, could You give a sign, anything, no matter how sma—
Blinding light. I flung an arm over my visor.
Warily, I opened an eyelid. On one side, the fish’s skin glowed. Sunlight? In the flesh, colors swirled madly, over and over. A pattern? I couldn’t be sure.
Out of swirling flesh, outriders reconstituted themselves. They attached themselves to the fish’s outer membrane, became indistinct, passed through.
I made my way to a porthole, and gasped.
Below floated Hope Nation’s vast, green orb. We’d Defused into a huge mass of fish. Some, I saw, were dead; their skins gray and blistered. The outriders ignored them, launched themselves from one living fish to another.
One by one, the fish they reached Fused out.
Outriders—others, but I wasn’t sure how I knew—were absorbed through the membrane into our own fish. They stayed only a moment or so, and passed outward.
Determinedly, I blocked the path of one. I jabbed the deck with the symbol for “why.” “? ? ?” What’s going on?
ONE-ARM FISH TELL BIG OUTRIDER TRADE YES.
My heart pounded. They were pulling back, carrying out their bargain. We had an hour, no more, to cement the truce.
Now it depended on me.
I keyed open every frequency the suit had. Let them all hear. “Ship’s Boy Carr to
Olympiad,
to Station, to Centraltown Admiralty, to Venturas Base. To the regional government. All planters within range of my voice, attention!”
“Belay that, joeyboy!”
“Who’s there?”
“Frand. Captain Frand.”
Over my dead body. “Station, record, please. Ms Frand, this is for your Log.”
“I say what goes into
—
”
“Goofjuice.” Steady, joey. How would Fath handle it? “You’ll be interrogated under poly and drugs, for having relieved your Captain. Hide what I have to say and they’ll hang you. Transmission begins.”
“Just a
—
very well, Log it, Mr Sutwin.”
“This is
Olympiad’s
Ship’s Boy Randolph Carr—”
“No longer. You’re removed from our ship’s company.”
I reared in my suit, ricocheting off a membrane. “Don’t interrupt, you self-righteous sea lawyer! The fate of Hope Nation and home system is in our hands. This is Randolph Carr, reporting from the alien vessel, uh …
One-Arm.
On Captain Seafort’s instructions, I’ve been negotiating with the outriders. We have a truce. They’ll cease their attack on the Venturas and on
Olympiad
As a show of good faith, they’re withdrawing for an hour.”
“
Olympiad
Colonel Kaminski on Orbit Station. It’s a trick. In an hour, we’ll be over the horizon. When they Fuse back, there’ll be nothing to stop them.
Olympiad
won’t be in position to give covering fire for three hours forty-seven—”
“I’m well aware, sir.”
Ms Frand’s tone was cold.
“—and the Venturas’ lasers won’t suffice. We won’t stand down. Keep firing!”
“I agree. We will.”
“Carr to Station, are you crazy? You just said you can’t get them all. The fish know you’re going over the horizon; why infuriate them to no purp—”
“You have no standing, Mr Carr.”
Frand.
“Leave this to respon
—
”
“I want to hear.” A new voice. It sounded distant. “Henry Winthrop, Council of Planters. Randolph, what have you arranged?”
“Nothing firm, but—”
Ms Frand said forcefully,
“A glitched joeykid can’t make a treaty! Only the U.N. Assembly
—
”
Mr Winthrop growled, “They bombed Centraltown, Ms Frand. I was a boy and saw the devastation. Were you there?”
“No, but …”
“If he can head off war, don’t stop him or I’ll make you regret it! That’s a threat to you and your Navy and the whole frazzing U.N.—
”
“Governor McEwan here. You speak treason, Winthrop. Remove yourself from this conversation.”
“Hold on, now.” Palabee, his tone anxious. “Bishop Scanlen and I are at target zero. Let’s hear—”
“LISTEN, ALL OF YOU!” Inside the helmet, my scream nearly shattered my eardrums. “They want to trade. All we—”
“We tracked his transmission.”
Ms Frand. “
I know the fish he’s in. He told them to wait ’til Orbit Station horizons. I’m going to settle
—
”
I grabbed my stick. “FUSE NOW NOW NOW!”
The fish pulsed.
“—no-Fuse fish die—”
The membrane parted. Protoplasm glowed white, gushed outward. I ducked, as if I might escape the fire.
Another pulse.
Dark. Fusion.
I gritted my teeth, wrote by feel. “Defuse ship
Moments later we Defused in the black of space. I peered anxiously through the membrane. Hope Nation was nowhere in sight. No Station. No
Olympiad.
I was panting. The yellow suit light glowed steadily. My time was almost gone. Where in hell were we? The cold unforgiving light of a billion distant stars was my only reply.
We Fused again.
“—gone no idea where he—”
“—should have listened.”
“—make a treason charge stick, McEwan, go ahead and try. Anthony Carr was right; you’re a snake in—”
There was light behind the fish’s skin. Strong light.
I wrote, “Where one-arm fish?”
An outrider materialized, out of the fish’s flesh. I wished they wouldn’t do that; it gave me the jumps.
PLANET
“—we have a shot for perhaps ten more minutes. There’s no more than a half-dozen fish over the atmosphere.”
“Colonel, we’re three hours twenty
—
”
A porthole opened, inches from my face. I flinched.
Orbit Station loomed, breathtakingly close.
Hastily, I keyed my radio. “Colonel Kaminski, hold fire! It’s Randy Carr. I’m in the fish alongside.”
“What are you up to, joey?
Olympiad
wants you dead, so do Scanlen’s crew. And if you’ve joined the fish, so do—”
Lord God, remember that help I asked for? Now would be a good time.
“Sir, my fish won’t attack. Hear me out!”
A pause. “I don’t know, son. The time comes for a joey to take sides.”
“Yes.” I tried to recall the Station tech whom Kaminski had asked Anth to rescue, ages past, at our reception. “Is Mr Driscoll still on Station? Anthony would be pleased. For his sake, I beg you, sir.” I held my breath. It would be enough, or it wouldn’t.
“Are you …” His voice was subdued. “Have you gone over to the fish? Tell truth, joey.”
“Truth, sir? The Church has gone mad. They want all fish dead, at whatever cost. Fath—Captain Seafort—is compromised; he’ll give anything, do anything, to save Corrine Sloan. Lieutenant Frand’s taken
Olympiad
for the Church. Scores of fish will die today, and Lord God knows how many of us, when the aliens exact revenge. Have I gone over? Yes, sir. To peace. If that be treason …” I fought to bring my voice under control. “… execute me now!”
Bravo, joey.
Anthony Carr, his tone sardonic.
Bravo, son.
My father Derek, his voice somber, from some unimaginable distance.
“Dad, I …”
“Very well, you have our protection.
Olympiad
take notice.”
“Kaminski, you’re blocking our shot.”
Lieutenant Frand sounded disgusted.
I said, “Mr Winthrop, Bishop Scanlen, all of you. I have a deal worked out, but I need help with the details. I need Captain Seafort, and also—”