Grimspace (8 page)

It's sputtering snow when we finally emerge from the
storage shed, from what felt like an endless night, into a white-gray morning. There's a lesson in that, I think. No matter how interminable something feels, there is always, always an ending. Sometimes that's good, and sometimes it's bad; sometimes it's a matter of indifference, and sometimes it's heartbreaking, and your life is never the same thereafter.

March surprises me by holding up a hand as the others set off. I wait without protest, but not because of what happened last night. That's not it.
Is
it? He goes back into the building and brings me a blanket, wraps me up in it poncho style. I give him a half smile, not understanding the shift.

But I murmur, “Thank you,” and we go along behind the others, him matching his strides to my shorter ones. The silence is oddly companionable.

Fried and fallen Teras bodies lie strewn all along the perimeter. They died in the night, trying to return to the caves, and in death they lose their camouflage. Dark and ugly, like something from a child's stories—it is difficult to believe something like this evolved naturally. The stench is dreadful, and more than once I swallow down bile that wants to become vomit, but I don't have anything to upchuck. The paste metabolizes quickly so your body receives the nutrients right away. And I chose not to eat it this morning; I'm hoping there will be something better at the main house.

“I haven't been fair to you,” he says, so quietly I almost don't catch it.

But he said it. I know he did. I actually stop walking. Pause and gape up at him. “You—”

“You heard me.” March scowls down at me, and I know he doesn't like saying it any more than I would. “I'm going to do better.”

Our eyes meet, and I notice for the first time that his eyes aren't simply dark; they possess gold flecks as well, an amber ring around the iris. He also has the most ridiculous lashes I've ever seen on a man, a sharp contrast to his hard-hewn face. He's almost too rough-featured in fact, unless you focus on those long lashes. After that look, mustering a smart-ass response takes some doing.

“Well, it'd be hard for you to do worse. Come on.”

We start walking, and I increase my pace to catch up with the others. I don't want Dina thinking I want private time with March. Mary forefend.

I don't know what I expected, not like I had a chance to look around last night. But the compound seems to be a series of outbuildings along a path that leads up to the main house, a structure of old-fashioned stonework. The whole enclave is surrounded by intricate wire-and-steel fencing, crackling an electrical warning as we pass by.

As we near the main house, clansmen whose names I don't know come to meet us. They live in what I take to be apartments or longhouses nearby. Keri greets them and invites them inside. The rest of us trail in her wake, and I gaze around, surprised at the elegance of her home.

Floors are marble, walls are paneled, and if it's not real marble, real wood, then they still paid a fortune for such high-quality synth. It even rings true when I rap my knuckles on it in passing. They have Giovanni paintings and sculptures from the Sheng Dynasty, just before Taiwan was reclaimed by China, or so my spotty recollection of Old Terra history suggests. It's a gorgeous place, and I feel bad just walking on this rug. My shoes sink six centimeters, and who knows what's on them?

We proceed to a meeting hall that looks almost like a senate chamber. Keri proceeds to the podium, where a Speaker would ordinarily stand, and she does so with a dignity I wouldn't have expected. Once there, she advises her clansmen of the bad tidings with solemn poise, and in turn, they report some losses in the night. One day, she will be a woman of great strength, I think. Depressing to contemplate, when she reaches her prime, I will be quite old if I even survive that long.

“Leadership is what separates a principal clan from a weak one,” she tells her people, once the initial shuffling has ceased. “And they will not yet listen to my voice on the Clan Council. Alone, I cannot hope to hold the position of strength we have enjoyed. So it is with a heavy heart that I propose consolidation. In making a marital merger with clan Gunnar, we double our holdings, double our population, and double our resources. Hereafter, the clan lines will be joined and known as Gunnar-Dahlgren. I put the proposition to a vote, as it affects the way you live, as much as me.”

The rumble of voices greets her pronouncement, and I watch from my vantage near the back. I don't know how this impacts me, but I feel a peculiar tension, studying her face. Glancing at the Gunnar, I see his investment in the proceedings. Both clans have lost so much. From what I can gather, they are taking a vote. A black bead means no, a white one means yes, and they pass around a silver dish. It is a remarkably elegant system for its simplicity. Finally, a dark-haired man stands, having counted the tokens, spokesman by some tacit understanding or perhaps tradition.

“Rydal.” Keri recognizes him with a nod.

“The vote is tallied in favor of consolidation,” he says with sad gravity. “We judge it preferable to a hostile takeover.”

Although I am not sure, I guess that would involve wholesale slaughter of the clan and seizing all assets and territories. March catches my eye and nods. I feel like I've just seen the world change in some fashion this morning, and I don't understand the sensation. Lachion has never influenced the larger universe so far as I'm aware; these are mudsider politics, nothing that will make a difference.

Keri inclines her head, then fixes a pale green gaze on the Gunnar. “Have your First speak to mine; we have contracts to negotiate.”

“My First died out on the Nejanna Plain,” he tells her flatly. “It will take time to decide who should fill the breach.”

You can almost see the sparks crackling between them, and I decide they're going to be bitching at each other longer than I really want to listen. Seems like I'm not the only one who feels that way because the Dahlgren clansmen trickle out in twos and threes, and even Doc shifts his weight on the balls of his feet.

I clear my throat. “Breakfast?”

Even though I direct the question to nobody in particular, Loras pushes away from the wall and beckons me. I fall in step beside him as he says, “I'll show you to the dining hall. There's usually something laid out for another hour or so.”

“Communal meals?” I can't imagine the workload that must mean for the cooks. Unless…“Do they have food processors?”

“The lesser clans, no. Some are astonishingly low-tech, but this one has done well. There are even bots in charge of cleaning and maintenance here.”

That remark reminds me of my cell AI, and my mouth tightens. “Fantastic. Can we expect…Oh, that smells good.”

Something sweet and smooth is brewing. I know the scent, I've had it once before—it's a hot drink that goes into your veins like pure chem, leaves you bouncing until you crash. I seem to remember it's highly addictive. There's also the aroma of honeyed pastries, fried s-meat, and some kind of fruit, a sharp, succulent tang. We come into a large open room with a couple of bots circulating, ostensibly keeping track of the food laid out on a long table. It's a well-lit space with windows on three walls, arrayed with round tables.

I make myself a sandwich out of the meat and the sweetbread while Loras looks on in horrified astonishment. “I don't think you're supposed to…”

Shrugging, I say, “It gets the job done,” and take an enormous bite.

Actually it's better than I expected, this blend of sweet and savory. He sighs and fastidiously selects some fruit. We've almost finished by the time the crew catches up with us. I'm drinking a cup of the dark, pungent stuff that will probably make me jittery; the taste is a little difficult to pin down, but it seems to have a trace of choclaste.

I don't know what happens next.

But as March drops down in the chair opposite me with a smile, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to like it.

“You're serious,” I say, after hearing what they have in
mind.

March nods. “That's the plan.”

Doc looks faintly apologetic, as if he suspected what my reaction would be. And if he supposed I'd be horrified at the thought of a ten-planet tour, all in different quadrants, without scheduled R&R, well, he'd be right. That doesn't even factor in the expectation of recruiting unregistered J-gene carriers for our as-yet-fictitious academy. And what about the gray men hunting me? The minute I'm ret-scanned in any Corp way station, they're going to dispatch the nearest unit.

With some effort, I manage to make myself sound reasonable and not just start ranting, my first impulse. “Look, first, you're talking about a really long haul. I've always had plenty of rest between jumps, and we don't know what our timetable will be. I have no idea what this could do to me.”

Dina leans forward, elbows on the table. “It kills you.”

Something in her gray eyes tells me she's talking about Edaine. And I won't go there with her right now, though I know I'm not the reason the other jumper pushed herself so hard. She might've made her last flight as a sacrifice for me, but I didn't cause her total burnout. That decision was hers, and I'm just a convenient source of expiation.

“Everybody dies,” I answer. “It's just a matter of when and whether you do anything worthwhile beforehand.” But I don't take it any further, and as far as I'm concerned, that's a concession. Instead, I ask, “What am I supposed to say anyway? ‘Come join our renegade training facility. No, we don't have anything built yet, but they're working on that while I find the founding class.'”

“I expect you'll refine the verbiage,” Loras puts in. “That's part of your skill set, isn't it? It's why you were so good at making first contact.”

And damn him, he's right. I
do
have a knack for swinging luck my way. Always have had—it's one reason I live through things that destroy everyone around me.

“The gray men—” I start to object, but March shakes his head.

“You won't be traveling first-class anymore, Jax. No more clean Corp stations.”

Takes me a minute, but I get it. We'll be avoiding regulated routes, slinging out through the beacon nearest our objective, then scrambling signal so they can't tell where we've gone. There are a pretty low number of potential destinations at each point, so they may locate us via legwork, but that will slow them down some.

By keeping on the move, we stay one jump ahead of them. Literally. That means I won't have long to convince the unregistered resources to join up. It sounds crazy; the Corp is just so big. How can we imagine, even for a moment, that we might muster the resources to challenge its monopoly? Grimspace belongs to the Corp; it's an undisputed reality and has been, longer than I've been alive.

I realize I don't even know the details of how Clericon Stellar went down. They were a start-up like we hope to be, and they failed. If we're going to do this, I need to find out why. Information may be our only hope. There might even be other renegade jumpers, although I've heard nothing. Stands to reason the Corp wouldn't want that getting out. In fact, I bet I've been listed as officially flatline by now, so maybe they've called off the gray squads and are pursuing me through unofficial means.

As my training informed me, Corp intelligence tracks our jumps into grimspace and there are pinch-faced men that go over flickering screens, trying to make the numbers match up. Of course, in revealing this, they were reassuring us that we wouldn't get lost. But now it makes me wonder how many unsanctioned jumpers their data miners tallied and what happened to those people if they got caught.

Deep down I don't need to be told; I know. And unless I want it to happen to me, I've got to make this work. It's a different life. No more am I Sirantha Jax, Corp superstar. Now I'm just Jax, and I need to prove myself all over again. Well, that's fine. I've survived worse.

I don't let myself think about Kai.

Glancing up from my silver mug, I find them all staring at me. “Okay.” I glance at Doc. “What's the first planet on the list? And how did you find these sources? The Corp has tons of people constantly looking for the same thing. There aren't enough J-gene carriers to replenish the pool, based on burnout rate. In about ten turns, there aren't going to be enough trained jumpers left to meet demand.”

Saul pulls a silk screen datapad from his pants pocket and slides it across the table toward me. I hit the lower left corner to increase resolution so I can read, and first it's just a list of names: Marakeq, Gestalt, Freeley, Darengo, Collins, Sureport, Venetia, Lark, Belsev, Quietus. But after a moment, it sinks in.

“These are all either nonhuman or class-P worlds.”

The Corp doesn't interfere on class-P worlds, where native technology falls somewhere between Bronze Age and pre-Industrial. Once we make first contact, we log our findings, then categorize the planet as primitive. In most cases, we could determine that much from orbit, but the Corp likes to know the exact level of development: what sort of tools, customs, whatever we can learn in a single visit. After that, interstellar trade and travel remains restricted until such time as the citizens develop sufficient technology to come looking for us on their own.

Furthermore, those five class-P worlds? They're the ones where I made first contact, but I can't imagine myself going back to claim sons and daughters, taking them away to the sky. How in the hell can I rationalize that? Culture shock might kill them, let alone grimspace.

“I don't think you grasp the scope of what Mair wanted to do,” March says then.

“So tell me.”

“We aren't interested in spiriting away a couple adventurous souls here and there,” Saul explains. “We're looking to relocate whole villages—we'll cull them from remote areas where their disappearance simply goes unsolved. Certain anomalies in Old Terra history make me believe this may have occurred before. Ever heard of Roanoke?” I shake my head and he adds, “No matter. You needn't examine all the evidence as I have. But this is why Gunnar-Dahlgren needs to be fixed to support a surge in population. We're not simply starting an academy, although that's part of it.”

“A colony of jumpers.”

It's a mammoth undertaking. I don't ask if they have transport ships. Surely they must have passenger freighters somewhere on this rock, if they're serious. I don't know how I feel about that. Part of me thinks any breeding experiment is doomed to failure, and Mary knows we've seen bad results from this kind of thing, time and again. Purpose becomes twisted, and even a scientist with the best intentions, like Doc, gets swept up in the trappings of godhood. People shouldn't be pushed to mate to produce a certain type of child; I feel strongly about that.

“Nobody will be forced to do anything,” March says with a disgusted sigh. “Doc's isolated something that the Corp never saw. He's been going through medical records for years.” Which doesn't quite explain how he found it, but maybe he's simply smarter than the average Corp scientist. Given that they're mostly bureaucrats these days, that hypothesis doesn't stretch my imagination much. “So there's another factor that determines how
long
someone can handle grimspace, and it's tied to the genotype.”

He pauses, and we stare at each other. I feel as if he's willing me to make a mental leap, like he'll be disappointed in me if I can't put it together on my own. Then it dawns on me, a feeling of astonishment and awe—sunrise on Ielos. I sat in the thermal rooms with Kai once, watching slow red-orange break of light refracted over the glaciers. That's how I feel now.

“Not a bloodline,” I say slowly. “You're looking to engineer a new species. You want human recruits from class-P worlds with strong J-gene strains. Alien DNA provides for longevity—compensates for burnout.”

March watches me, probably tracking my mental processes. He knows when I work it out. I dub that unknown factor the L-gene, whatever allows inhuman navigators to withstand grimspace better than we do. A number of alien races can sense the beacons, but many despise us for our conquistador attitude, and the rest consider us food.

I say it aloud for the benefit of the others. “You're going to make something new from mingling alien and human DNA. I'm right, aren't I?”

Dina crams the last of a sweetbread into her mouth and says through the crumbs, “Hey, you're not as dumb as you look after all.”

Maybe I really was better off in my cell.