Revolution's Shore (23 page)

“I
have
?” She had no time to debate this point because they reached the ship. Yehoshua had already located an outside seal, halfway around the curve of the ship, and he beckoned to them. By the time they arrived at his position, he had managed to open it, revealing an airlock that led inside.

“Maintenance shaft, I'd wager,” said Yehoshua over the mike. There was easily enough room for all four of them, and once the outer lock shut, Lily felt an immediate shift in her balance, a tug toward one wall.

“This place gives me the spooks,” said Jenny abruptly as the inside lock sighed slowly open onto an empty, silver-walled corridor. “You'd think it was still alive …” She trailed off as Lily took the first, hesitant step into the
Forlorn Hope
, paused, and read the narrow screen on her lower suit arm.

“We still have atmosphere,” Lily said. “That's incredible, after all this time.” She glanced at Finch. “Maybe there are ghosts on board.”

But they found no one living, and no bodies, dead, decayed, or otherwise. What signs of human habitation there were had the look of tidy, shipshape readiness, as if a crew was about to board, not as if it had carelessly or hastily abandoned the vessel.

At first they wandered, rather lost, through a seeming maze of silver corridors. The barest gleam of light heralded their path. Eventually Lily relayed on the hand-pack back to Bach, and discovered a fact that somehow did not particularly surprise her: the little robot was completely familiar with the design specifications of the so-called highroad fleet. She used his rather convoluted directions to lead them along more silver corridors to an elevator that, at his directions, carried them to a new deck.

This one was gold, textured, and patterned, glowing with an incandescent gleam, like the ghost of the ship's past life. The way to the bridge proved almost deceptively simple.

The bridge itself had a refinement, an efficiency of design, that in a subtle way put the ostentatious command centers of La Belle's and Yi's ships to shame. Streamlined and sleek, like the
Forlorn Hope
itself, it was easy to find and bring to life the various consoles, to identify their purpose, even in the gloom of minimum lighting.

Finch discovered the comm and quickly sat down and went to work. In minutes, he had opened a line to the shuttle.

Jenny found and studied weapons. Yehoshua settled in at life support and began to bring up an array of functions on the console. Lily, on her way to the engineering link, paused beside the captain's chair.

On impulse, she keyed in for the log, tried once, twice, three times. Used the relay to Bach, and tried his new commands.

The log had been wiped clean. There was no sign if the damage was deliberate or accidental. Thoughtful, she crossed to the engineer's link and, with Blue kibitzing through Bach, pulled up the function banks.

Suddenly the lights came on, brilliant, glaring. Softened abruptly to a smoother brightness. She turned to see Yehoshua removing his head gear; gasped—like the lights coming on—and then caught herself as Bach sang a question, and she relaxed.

After a few minutes, when Yehoshua did not die, she took her own head gear off, quickly followed by Finch. Jenny, with a grimace, kept hers on at Lily's command.

“Well?” Lily asked, gesturing toward the consoles, which had come to life at the hands of these interlopers.

Yehoshua shook his head. For the first time since Alsayid's death, his face bore a look of animation. “It's as if,” he began, slowly, careful of his words, “they shut it all down, all but the absolute lowest level maintenance and drive functions, just put it on hold and then left. I can't imagine what would cause them to do such a thing, or where they might have gone.”

“Or how,” added Finch, his voice an echo of Yehoshua's astonishment. “If this
is
the
Forlorn Hope.”

“Can you doubt it?” asked Yehoshua.

Finch shook his head in agreement. “How could they just leave—” He set his lips together, thinking. “Unless there are bodies in cryo on one of the lower decks. Or just plain bodies.”

“I hope the channel to the shuttle is closed,” said Lily cautiously. “We'll never get the Ridanis on the ship if they hear that. Yehoshua, we need a working hold that can bring in the shuttle.”

He made an affirmative noise and began keying through the systems files.

“All right,” said Lily, when he had found what she needed. “You and Finch relay through Pinto and Lia, and bring them in. Jenny, you and I will go down to meet them.”

Lily sealed her head gear back on for the trip down to the holds level. They took their time, wandering as they went, this time armed with a tight relay to Bach, who kept them oriented.

The gold deck had only two other sections besides the bridge: a three-room suite comprised of tac and computer centers and a two-room suite that evidently had belonged to the captain.

“Look at that bed!” Jenny exclaimed as they keyed open the lock into the inner room. “Four people could sleep on that bed, and it's freestanding! Do you suppose all the quarters are like this?”

Lily stared. The two rooms seemed huge to her, at least five meters square each. She shrugged, tonguing her mike switch. “It was an exploratory vessel, wasn't it? They might spend years on this ship without ever making landfall.”

Below gold they found the silver deck they had entered onto. Here were far more corridors, but this maze was quickly explained: this deck held the crew's quarters, the medical, the mess and rec sections, and a few areas Lily thought might be labs.

After silver, the color of the walls changed again, this time to a copper sheen. Labs, a small detention suit of cells, and a second and larger rec suite, filled about half of the deck. The other half they did not explore: a single door labeled Green Room led into it.

A large freight elevator took them to the lowest deck.

“Well,” said Jenny, examining the iron-grey walls of this deck with a practiced eye. “Now I feel more at home.”

Lily suspected that there was some pattern to the decks, as there had been on La Belle's ship, a pattern that Kyosti would have laughed to see, although she could not possibly guess why. They hurried past cargo holds, the weapons and engineering access, a maintenance lab, a second computer center, before they found the triple airlocks giving onto the great hangar.

The shuttle had arrived before them. After almost half an hour of misunderstanding Bach's answers to her questions, Lily finally discovered that it
was
possible to connect a pressurized tube to the shuttle hatchway and funnel the passengers off to an atmosphered overlook without having to put them all in suits.

Blue, of course, emerged first, followed by Bach and Lia and Gregori, in a clump, and then Yehoshua's crewman wheeling the stasis couch in which Kyosti lay, still unconscious, and last the Mule carrying the injured woman. After a pause Pinto emerged, looking disgusted.

Lily had taken off her head gear. “Where are the others?”

“Where do you think?” Pinto said. The geometric lines on his face emphasized his derision. “Paisley was telling stories about the third cursed merchanter when I left. You know, hailed by the ghost ship and didn't cut and run fast enough. I think this one ends up trapped in the gasp between windows.”

“Oh.” Lily looked at Kyosti's still form thoughtfully, wondering what he would think of such a fate. “I'll deal with them.”

Blue had gone to the overlook plastine and stood, face pressed against the plastine, staring out across the vast hangar. “Look!” he exclaimed. “Two other landers. But just small ones. You'd think a ship like this would have had some larger shore-boats, or recce yachts, at least.”

Lily lifted her gaze from Kyosti to consider the group assembled before her. A motley collection, without a doubt. Most of them gaped out the overlook glass at the hangar, at the fine, impressive interior of a ship older than their great-grandparents and yet still as advanced—still
more
advanced—than any that Reft space, Central or Jehane, possessed now.

“First.” She waited until they all looked at her. “Comrade Blumoris.” He turned, reluctantly. “Bach will have to give us a quick guide to the ship, before you head to your posts. Keep in wrist-com, in case you get lost. Blumoris, I want you to engine-access. You're what we've got right now for engine tech.”

Blue's mouth dropped open, leaving him looking young and foolish. He was clearly too stunned to speak. “
I
get to—” Almost too stunned. “
I
get to run these engines?”

“Not yet,” said Lily with patience. “Familiarize yourself for now. I'll send Paisley along after you—”

“That grimy tattoo—”

“Blumoris.” The sharpness of her tone cut him off. “Who gave you leave to speak?”

Under the censorious gaze of all the rest, Blue looked for the first time a little shamefaced, or at least sullenly acquiescent.

Lily transferred her gaze to the crewman holding onto Kyosti's stasis couch. “I'm afraid I've forgotten your name, comrade.”

He gave her a brief salute, a gesture that surprised her. “Jorge Zia Nguyen, sir.”

She coughed behind her hand to hide her embarrassment at being called sir. “Well, comrade.” Hesitated, having forgotten for an instant what she meant to ask him. “Yes. Do you have a specialty that might help us here?”

“I have some experience in weapons systems, sir.”

“Good. You and Pinto go straight to the bridge. I don't suppose your comrade …”

“Wei, sir.”

“Thank you—has any experience in navigation?”

Nguyen shook his head. “Soldiering, mostly, with a little training in comp and tac.”

Lily sighed, feeling lost again. Without nav, they could fill every other seat and still remain stranded in Landfall system.

“If I may?” The Mule's fluid question was surprisingly deferential. Lily nodded, looking at him curiously. “I have some experience in nav.”

“But in Jehane's fleet—on
Franklin's Cairn
—you weren't ever training in nav, were you? Why wouldn't Callioux have assigned you there?”

“You forget, comrade,” hissed the Mule with a sardonic edge, “that in Jehane's fleet there are sta running nav. Sta have not taken sides in this so-human conflict, but they are always willing to accept pay for services. Sta will not work with me.”

Blue stared in repulsed amazement at the Mule, his nose puckered up as if the air had suddenly brought him a bad smell. The others, all but Pinto, looked down, or away. Pinto, however, looked at the Mule with acute interest.

“Why didn't you tell me this before?” asked Lily.

“You didn't ask,” replied the Mule.

“Hoy. And you're good at
bissterlas
, too, aren't you?”

“
Damn
good at it,” said Pinto so sharply that the Mule shifted its gaze to meet the pilot's eyes. They seemed to measure each other, two whose work had to mesh perfectly in order to guide a ship safely through the precise limits and angles of the vector drive. After a moment, as if satisfied, they both looked at Lily.

Lily shook her head. “I think we've got the absolutes covered,” she said, not quite believing it herself. “If this boat still runs, and we can figure it out. Jenny, you take these two to Medical. Do what you can to make them comfortable until Finch can come down and check them. Then you—and Gregori, I think—just roam the ship until you feel familiar with it. That should cover everyone except the Ridanis.”

“What about me?” Lia's soft voice barely stirred the air. She had managed to lose herself in one corner of the overlook, hidden in swathes of loose fabric and the dark cloud of her hair.

“Relieve Finch while he's in Medical.”

“I could,” said Aliasing tentatively, “but there is one thing you've forgotten.”

“There is?” Lily asked, surprised not by this revelation but by its source.

“Food.” Aliasing pursed her lips, giving her fragile features a remarkably practical cast. “Maybe I should go find the mess.”

Lily glanced, startled, at Jenny, but the mercenary merely lowered her eyes in a uncharacteristically demure gesture that Lily abruptly suspected hid amusement.

“By all means,” agreed Lily. “You've just been appointed Steward.”

For some reason, this made Lia laugh, but she went after the others without further comment.

L
ILY'S FIRST ACT ON
reaching the shuttle cabin was to order Rainbow, in her most military voice, to stand guard in Medical over Finch's examination of the wounded. Rainbow's reflexes got the better of her superstitions, and she snapped a salute, called up her ten—consisting of Cursive and Diamond—and marched them out of the shuttle before they could think twice about setting foot on the decks of ya ghost ship itself.

Paisley did not budge. Her expression stiffened into one of mutinous resolve.

“It bain't right,” she said stoutly. “It be
poor
of you, min Rans—min Heredes, to play sore and fast with ya cursed ground.”

“Paisley.” Lily let the girl wait while she peeled off her suit and stowed it in its locker. When she sat down beside the Ridani girl, she unclipped her screen from her belt and keyed it on.

Paisley regarded her with a stubbornness that would have put the Mule to shame.

“I'm going to tell you some things that most of the people on this ship—and most people in the Reft—don't know.”

Paisley's lips twitched. “Be it ya secret?”

“Not quite. It's something people here have forgotten, and I found out just by accident.”

“I remember,” said Paisley slowly, “'bout ya time we be trapped in ya spook's ship, and min Bach showed us ya star map.”