In the Company of Others (11 page)

Other ships are hobbled, some crippled, some die. Their combined flight is a halting one as suited crews work to exhaustion helping passengers, bundled within freight canisters because there are no more suits, make the dangerous transit to healthier ships.

The tiny speck of life in the
'Mate
's cabin sleeps; perhaps ships do as well, given a course and repaired systems.

Plummet from translight. Thromberg Station.

The
Merry Mate II
is already late; Raner utters a command to stop them before approach is locked. Suspicion or caution; both are improvements over blind risk. Perhaps the ship approves.

Her screens capture the crew. They stare out at the spectacle of the vast cylinder of the station besieged by hundreds of ships, large and small, fully intact to barely holding air.

Raner cries out at something he sees. A ship careens past them, too close, out of control, bleeding her air as flame.
Danger! Damage! Thieves!
the
'Mate
cries silently. Specks tumble from the ship: pieces of debris, suited survivors. The station is forgotten in the urgency of dealing with what can be done.

Codes allow the unlawful—gravity off, both of the
'Mate
's freight locks open to space, her holds scoured to vacuum, her interior protected only by bulkheads and access door locks. A silent cacophony as both mag boots and scrap thump home on her outer surface, a confusion of what should be saved and what her sensors scream to avoid. It continues, spreads into her holds as some move within while others reach her hull.

The proper place of things is restored: relief to systems designed to prevent risk. The holds warm, fill with air as well as moans and molecules of scorched flesh. There is a woman Raner cares for, ignoring urgent demands about courses and futures. She left her hands in the other ship, it seems; not the most sorely wounded, since her voice lifts to be heard with Raner's, discussing courses and futures after all.

A ship can see all ways at once; inside, outside makes no difference. The
'Mate
's forward views fill with Thromberg's white curve, emergency patches like fingernail scratches of dull gray metal scoring its perfection, every intact docking port inhospitably closed.

Communication links overload repeatedly, kicking off-line as too many voices demand to be heard. Perhaps the ship is overwhelmed with human passions and cannot bear to listen. One voice gets through, calling for Raner by name. Perhaps the man is overwhelmed and cannot bear to answer.

Do ships grow impatient? Boards flash demands as resources run low—perhaps that is one and the same.

Do humans? Never doubt they consider time an enemy. As the hours accumulate, the voices sputter and fade to ominous, waiting silence. Many on the
'Mate
sleep. Raner does not. He divides his time with mechanical precision between the baby, the woman—Rosalind—and the
'Mate
's view of the station.

Sensors, like a sleeping dog's ears, react first to change. One of the dozens of ships hovering in line with the
'Mate
powers up without warning, unforgivably close to others—
Danger! Damage! Thieves!
the
'Mate
would wail if she could. No need for her alarms—Raner stands at the view screen, statue-still, watching the ship as she moves deceptively slowly from the line, acceleration disguised by perspective, heading for Thromberg.

The
Haida V
sends out her ship-protest as proximity alarms and emergency ident codes, machine cries humans can ignore at will. Thromberg's horrified echoes fill the monitors with flashes of red. The collision fools the eye but not sensors set to calculate the tangents of debris. The
Haida
is pockmarked by shards of the station's metal as they ricochet off her hull; the
'Mate
braces herself to be next.

Haida
stays in place, her nose fused within the mass of buckled plates by either luck or desperate planning. Suited figures leap from her air locks, drifting down to the larger mass of the station, some with cabling stringing out behind them that catch the last flare of sunlight over Thromberg's long belly.

Wrongness. Perversion. Are these concepts to a starship? Perhaps the
'Mate
rationalizes the attachments as being like those in a shipyard; where hoses and other lines are temporary, messy things; where humans work together to aid and repair ships. There's no doubt the
Haida
needs aid and repair.

There's no doubt others do as well. As the light from the star Thromberg orbits as home is lost behind her rim, the waiting turns into something else. One by one, then by the dozen, other ships power up and approach the station—ever so slowly, as if fearing to be chased away again, as if lacking the bold courage—or insanity—of the
Haida.
They hurry to touch down in the shadows, crews scrambling outside in the utter cold to gnaw their way into the station's promise of warmth and safety.

The docking area rolls back into dawn, waiting ships synchronized to its spin, strange silence from all concerned. Below, the station's surface looks oddly normal, like the landing field on some airless moon. This is where ships should be, this is where they were welcomed once. The
'Mate
listens, but where there should be the reassuring overlap of codes and instructions comes only silence. Saving grace for all—those landing understand they must touch only here, on the docking ring itself, or risk wobbling the seemingly invulnerable station from her orbit.

Nightfall. There are new stars nearby as ships turn on their docking lights to avoid ramming one another as wave after wave descends to join the others on the station. The
'Mate
is soon alone.

Do machines face conflicts within their programming? Humans must. Rosalind arrives on the bridge, given room by the rest. She stands by Raner, the stationer, for a moment, both look at the scene in the
'Mate
's screens, then she whispers in his ear. He shakes his head violently, utters incoherent words. Others grab his arms, they are rough, the
'Mate
is alarmed by violence near her controls.
Danger! Damage! Thieves!
but her silenced voice counts for naught.

There is sudden stillness. Raner shakes an arm free, stares at Rosalind, then reaches forward to input the codes for manual control. The
'Mate
drifts down and away from herself, an inner distancing that perhaps brings a certain resigned peace. Raner pulls his other arm from a now-loose grip and leaves the bridge to care for the tiny speck of life.

Does the
'Mate
know this is her final journey? Perhaps there is comfort in that as well.

Pardell knew there was no point rushing Rosalind. She'd seen the worst his peculiar nature could do, had sat with him while Raner tried drug after drug to control the convulsions. She'd made sure someone would stay with him after Raner's death, although making it clear she couldn't bear to remain. Since then, her habit was to drop in, like this, unannounced but usually for reasons that showed she kept track of him. It had been comforting, until today.

Today
, Pardell thought suddenly,
he'd had too much of being watched, even by those who cared about him.

Rosalind's right hand was thick and paddlelike, incapable of fine movement. Her left hand was more elaborate. Under its three-fingered glove was a small yet powerful servo mechanism her crewmates had liberated from an internal repair 'bot with no further need for it. At the moment, Rosalind was using it to turn her cup in delicate circles on the tabletop, alternately gripping, twisting, and releasing. She could as easily squeeze its metal flat, but Rosalind loathed waste. She seemed to find her own movements fascinating, and didn't look up at him when she asked suddenly: “Why do you risk it, young Aaron?”

He knew what she meant and considered pretending he didn't, then shrugged. “Sammie's? It's not a risk. I'm with my friends, Rosalind.”

Her eyes lifted. They were a pale gray, with flecks of oily black; cold, penetrating eyes that missed little and forgave nothing. “Your friends hurt you today.”

“It was an accident!” Pardell snapped. “My friends look out for me—they always have. With them, I can be myself and not some—” the word died on his tongue.

“Freak?”

It shouldn't hurt from her
, Pardell told himself fiercely,
not when he thought it all the time himself.

But it did.

Rosalind reached for his hand. He put his fingers into her gloved prosthesis carefully, slowly—
forgiveness
—remembering all the times she'd been the one to bandage his knee or some other scrape, or help fit a new-to-him suit as he grew out of the old pieces. Her loss had given her the ability to touch him, and he would never forget that comfort. “I don't want to upset you, young Aaron,” she told him, her voice softer than usual, almost gentle. “But sometimes you need reminding. You slide a cable so fine it scares me—it scares all of your friends.”

Pardell took back his hand. “What do you want me to do, Rosalind? Lock myself on board the
'Mate
? Use the comm as my only way to interact with others? Don't you think this—” he held up his hand and stripped off its glove, feeling the cold touch of air; beneath, his skin was pale and clean, veined under its surface in faint gold, like the imperfections in marble “—is punishment enough, without making it completely impossible for me to have a normal life?” He sighed and looked at her. “There's such a thing as being too safe.”

“There's such a thing as being not safe at all, young Aaron,” Rosalind turned his words back on him, her eyes full of foreboding.

“The Earthers,” Pardell sighed again as he pulled on the glove, feeling exposed without the covering even though it did nothing to protect him from touch. “I'm not a fool. While it would be nice if the Aaron Luis Pardell they hunt has inherited controlling shares in a major Earth conglomerate, maybe TerraCor itself, everyone knows there's nothing about me worth anyone's attention but my—condition. Unless you're planning to tell me it's my wealth.” His wave extended to include the galley around them and, by that, the dead ship herself.

Rosalind merely looked pensive, as if he'd given her something new to consider. “Don't undervalue the old girl,” was all she said.

“And don't underestimate the curiosity value of a mutation,” he said sharply, refusing to be distracted. “What else could it be? They've always been after the station to report any deformities or sickness—we all know it's to justify how Earth treats us here—now somehow they've heard about me. Sure, they'll pay me. Anything to have a freak to show off.”

“Obvious,” Rosalind agreed, then added deliberately: “Is the obvious always valid?”

Pardell's thoughts fractured and re-formed, as she'd intended, and he squinted at her. “You know something about these Earthers,” he said suspiciously. “What?”

Servo fingers stroked their paddle counterpart. “Not as much as either of us would like,” Rosalind began by admitting. “I know their ship, the
Seeker
. She was shown off last year by Titan University's Works Department as some sort of marvel—a prototype research vessel, crammed full of the latest scanning gear and who knows what else. This is her first recorded departure from Sol System, although her captain and crew have deep-space experience. And I know Professor Gail Veronika Ashton Smith, of more disciplines than are worth mentioning—if only by reputation.”

“And—” Pardell prompted, his mind's eye flashing on a small, round face with determined blue eyes and a hint of dimples.

“Smith is said to be exceptionally brilliant, to have alienated or left behind most of Earth's academic community, and apparently has one mission in life—to destroy the Quill.”

“The Quill?” Pardell made a grimace and tilted his homemade chair back to consider this. The
'Mate
had long ago succumbed to the practicalities of furnishings that could come and go with the people using them. Rosalind had hated it when Raner ripped out the retractable stools and traded their mechanisms for medicines; Pardell remembered the day as one of their more memorable arguments.
He'd hidden in the abandoned bridge.
“Then—why me?” he asked her, now thoroughly puzzled. “I don't know anything about the Quill beyond what comes through station scuttlebutt. They're giants with googly eyes and long tentacles, last I heard.”

“Or they were never a threat at all.”

“Pardon?”

“You heard me.” Rosalind made a sharp metallic sound by tapping a finger against the tabletop, demanding his attention. “There are those who believe Earth deliberately planted rumors about contamination to cover up their own failure—that the terraforming engineers couldn't do what they promised and the worlds weren't ready. No alien invasion, no fatal Quill Effect. Simple incompetence. And if it were true—how long do you think any of us would stand for what's happened as a result?”

The Quill, a hoax?
Pardell stared at her, then sniffed, then finally broke out in a laugh he could no more help than he could fly. “You've been Outside too long, Rosalind. You can't have it both ways—if there are no Quill, why would Earth send Smith to destroy them? And what about all those who never returned from the contaminated worlds? Are you saying they were ambushed—or kidnapped—by embarrassed engineers?” He managed not to laugh again—her expression having gone from tolerant to that icy glare those pale eyes delivered so well. “Well, think about it, Rosalind,” he said persuasively. “How could a cover story that caused mass panic and hysteria, that cost all those lives, possibly hold together? People, Earthers or not, aren't that stupid.”