Starship Summer (14 page)

I stood on the threshold and stared into the lounge.

Matt lay on the floor, face down, unmoving. I stared at the body in disbelief, going over the events that had led to this… And then it hit me, and it was too much of a hope to harbour.

I stepped forward, towards the body, reached out, sick lest my hand should encounter real, solid flesh.

I should have known. I should have known that Matt was too wise to let himself be killed by an aggrieved alien lover, too intelligent not to know how to stage the tableau of revenge—and save himself in the process.

My hand reached out and passed through the body’s chest as if it were a ghost.

A voice spoke from the door. “I had to do it like this, David.”

I turned. It was Matt, standing in the entrance and staring at me. I thought that he would have been triumphant, or at least relieved, but his expression was defeated, deadened. After all, how often is it that we are chased to the ends of the galaxy by an ex-lover, and to all intents and purposes assassinated?

Now I knew why Matt had claimed to Hawk that there was no room in his life for romance…

“Maddie!” I cried, leaping to my feet. I pushed past a startled Matt, out into the storm. Visibility had decreased, Delta Pavonis totally blotted by storm clouds. I looked right, along the beach to the Mantis, but there was no sign of Maddie. I set off in the opposite direction, towards the Fighting Jackeral, thinking that she might have sought refuge there.

I was halfway towards the Jackeral when I saw her. She was a miniature figure in the distance, mounting the steps to the jetty and running along its length.

I called her name again and gave chase.

The wind was an inimical physical force, and in the frenzied minutes that followed it came to me, like the improbable notion of a nightmare, that the wind was indeed hostile to me and my attempts to save Maddie. It was no longer a mindless force of nature but a force possessed of evil intent. I reached the jetty and ran up the steps, slipping on the slick, wave-washed boards.

Maddie was a wind-blown shape approaching the end of the jetty. I sprinted, screaming at her in desperation, but the wind snatched at my words and flung them in the opposite direction.

She had come to a halt at the very end of the sodden stretch of lumber, teetering on the edge as she stared oblivion in the face.

I cried out, “Maddie! Matt’s okay! He’s alive! Maddie—please listen!”

She didn’t hear a word. As if in slow motion she pitched herself into the raging maelstrom of the bay—and seconds later I reached the edge and peered over.

She was a storm-tossed doll, battered by the waves, temporarily kept afloat by the chance inflation of her cape. But even as I watched, the swollen garment withered and Maddie was dragged under.

Seconds later she emerged again, further out, a panic-stricken whirl of arms and sodden hair.

Fear stopped me diving in, fear and the nightmare in my head. I was on the ferry again, and it tipped, and took from me everything I loved, and—despite everything I had told my friends—I had been too weak, too ineffectual, to do anything about it. Now I could act, but something stopped me—a fear that gripped like a fever—until a voice in my head soothed my nightmares and told me that I could do it, I could atone by saving Maddie, or attempting to save her.

I hesitated, but the voice insisted. And I dived.

The muscled might of the salt water was a shock. It grabbed me, tumbled me over and over. I was dragged under, spluttering, and then resurfaced far out. I attempted to orient myself, work out in which direction was the shore, and from there guess where Maddie might be. I caught a glimpse of the looming jetty, and turned—and there was Maddie, perhaps ten metres from me.

I fought my way through the waves, my progress a frustrating process of two metres forward and one back as the waves dragged and flung me. But I was gaining, even though Maddie was dragged under again and again. She disappeared, then bobbed up again, screaming.

I reached where she had been, but she was gone, and in a terrible second it came to me that my efforts had been futile. Not only would Maddie die, but in attempting to save her I would suffer the same fate.

At that moment I saw her, two arms’ lengths away. Gagging, I lunged and made a frantic grab for the cape, caught it and dragged Maddie towards me—and she struggled and screamed at the thought of the hell to which salvation would commit her.

Shouting at her in frustration, I snagged her around the neck in a desperate embrace, and the contact of flesh on flesh—the surge of my fear, anger, and sudden joy—hit her and she ceased to struggle.

Then, as if ordained by some miracle, the storm abated and the Ring of Tharssos appeared between the darkened clouds and illuminated the bay, and I kicked out through the waves towards the safety of the shore.

Matt was on the beach and helped me carry Maddie back to the ship. We hauled her into the lounge. She was spluttering salt water and crying, and she saw Matt and reached out for him, touched his hand and cried out as if burned and pulled away. Matt, tears in his eyes, gripped her shoulder through the cape as I fetched towels to dry her, and a bottle of brandy.

“I thought you were dead!” she wailed at Matt.

“It’s a long story,” I said. “Matt will explain everything later, okay?”

Not longer after that, with Maddie wrapped in towels and shivering before a heater, Hawk appeared in the doorway and limped across to us. He seemed not to notice the tousle-haired Maddie, was unaware of the drama recently enacted—too occupied, no doubt, with his own conflicting emotions.

“I’ve been giving it a lot of thought,” he said at last, staring at each of us in turn, “and I’ll do it. I’ll fly the ship.”

Maddie was the last to leave the Mantis that night. Hawk and Matt said goodbye around midnight, solicitous for Maddie’s welfare, but she assured them she was fine now.

Maddie huddled on a lounger, holding a big brandy glass in both hands—the glass swaddled in the protective cuffs of her blouse.

I must admit that I wondered when she might leave. I had the feeling she wanted to be alone with me, maybe to thank me for saving her life, and the thought made me uncomfortable.

Now she looked up from her glass and stared at me. “Back then…” she said, sounding as uncomfortable as I felt. “In the water—”

I waved her words away. “Maddie… Let’s not talk about it, okay? You were drowning. I had to do it—”

She was shaking her head. “I don’t mean that,” she said. “I mean… Look, when you grabbed me, I felt everything, your pain, your grief…”

I nodded. “Of course, I realise that.”

“David, I also experienced the truth. What really happened on that ferry.”

I stared at her, my mouth open.

She hurried on. “I’m not here to point the finger, David. There’s no blame involved. What you did, or didn’t do… who knows how anyone else might have reacted in the circumstances? You’ve suffered enough grief and guilt over the years.” She smiled at me. “I just wanted to tell you that I understand, okay?”

Unable to find the words to respond, I merely nodded.

I had told my friends what had happened that fateful day aboard the ferry, but it had been an edited version of events, a scenario tailored to avert blame and castigation.

For when the tanker had sliced into the ferry and pitched Carrie into the sea, I had remained on the listing deck, paralysed by terror, watching my daughter being swept away—and only the accidental spilling of the deck and its contents into the water had thrown me into the sea after her. I had tried frantically to reach Carrie, but by then it had been too late. The churning waves had carried her under, and unconsciousness came to me like blessed oblivion.

I had been truthful about the nightmares, however. In them, Carrie did appear and accuse me… and rightly so.

Now Maddie stood and held her arms out to me. “David, you can’t undo what you did, but you shouldn’t hate yourself for what happened.”

And she reached out and took me and accepted my pain, and I went to her.

THIRTEEN

The following day we reconvened at the Mantis.

Hawk lay in the suspension cradle which hung from the ceiling of the control room. Leads snaked up from his wrists, spine and head—not jacked into his ports, but fastened to his skin by adhesive pads. These would interface with his neural pathways and allow him to fly the ship.

A screen hung before his eyes, scrolling figures only he could understand.

He glanced at us as we stood around him. “Just like the old days,”he said. “Well, almost.”

I noticed the beads of sweat gathered on his forehead, and the fear in his eyes.

“Are you sure you can fly this thing?” Matt said.

Hawk nodded, reading from the screen. “In principle it’s the same as every other crate I’ve flown. It’s just that some of the ways of doing things are a little different.” He smiled at us. “Hey, have faith. I’ll get us to where we’re going, and back.”

Maddie looked at me. “But you don’t know where we’re heading,”she said.

I shook my head. “I’m sorry.”

“Is that voice in your head to be trusted?”

“I trusted it when it told me to dive in and save you,” I said,

“when it said that I had nothing to fear, and had to atone for past failings. Don’t worry, whatever it is… it’s humane.” I smiled at using such a term to describe something so alien.

Matt said, “So… what now?”

I indicated the four recesses, two on either side of the viewscreen, which Hawk had discovered the other day. Now, thanks to the guiding voice in my head, I knew what they were for.

“We stand in these for a minute, fully dressed. We’re coated with a… a protective barrier, I suppose you could call it.”

Matt asked, “Protective from what?”

I was forced to admit my ignorance. “I don’t know. It’s a vital part of the process.”

I took the lead and stepped into the alien-shaped recess, which accommodated my form with room to spare. After a brief hesitation, Matt and Maddie stepped into their own recesses. I heard a hiss all around me, felt a sebaceous tickle run over my skin. Within seconds the fluid had impregnated my clothing and I felt the oily layer coating me from head to foot.

I stepped back into the room. Matt quit his recess and touched the film between his fingers. He looked at me. “Strange. And you’ve no idea what it’s for?”

“I think we’ll soon find out,” I said. Maddie said, “And now?”

I pointed to the couches which, when Hawk had laid himself out in the suspension cradle, had ejected themselves from the floor. “We strap ourselves in. The ship does the rest.”

Again I took the lead, to show my friends that they had nothing to fear. I stretched out on the couch next to Hawk’s cradle, fastening the straps around my legs and torso. Seconds later something dropped from the ceiling, startling me. I stared up at the tiny glass bulb at the end of the sectioned, multi-jointed arm that bobbed inches from my forehead. I received the impression that it was examining me.

A beam of light lanced out, and I gasped. I was aware of Matt and

Maddie, watching with something like shock pasted onto their faces.

The light felt… soothing. “It’s okay,” I said. “I’m fine.”

I felt something energise within me, as if some latent force within my head had been unlocked. The beam persisted, connecting me to something in the ship that would draw power from my being.

Matt and Maddie lay down on their couches, and seconds later they too were connected.

Then the couches tipped as one, inclining forward so that we were sitting up and staring through the viewscreen.

I thought of the alien space-farers who had lain here before us, of the stars they had beheld on their voyages through the galaxy.

Where are we going, I asked the thing in my head, for perhaps the hundredth time. The alien deigned not to reply, but I knew it was there. “We’re powering up,” Hawk reported from his cradle. “Take-off in three minutes and counting…”

I was aware of a slight vibration that conducted itself through the Mantis, an almost subliminal hum at first, but mounting. Seconds later the ship shook, rattling us in our couches. I looked through the viewscreen and saw the scene of sea and foreshore yaw alarmingly. It see-sawed as the ship lifted with a groan of engines; the beach vanished beneath us, to be replaced with a view of the open sea.

Then the Mantis turned, pointing inland.

Hawk said, “Hold on—!”

And we accelerated.

An invisible force punched us back into the couches, almost robbing us of breath. I gripped the side of the couch as the ship underwent a high-pitched vibration; panels squealed as they took the strain, anything which I hadn’t removed in preparation fell to the floor and rolled across the deck.

Through the viewscreen I saw the magnificent interior, the plains of green and in the distance the rearing central mountains. We accelerated towards them so fast that they seemed to magnify alarmingly, like an image in a suddenly refocused telescope.

Maddie, beside me, her teeth chattering, managed, “Why on earth did I agree to this torture?”

I said, “Relax. Don’t fight it. Ride with it.”

“Mach one and climbing,” Hawk reported. “Mach two… three…”

Matt said, “Where are you taking us, Hawk?”

A muted laugh from the suspension cradle. “I’m taking you nowhere, Matt. This thing’s pre-programmed. I’m just easing it along, stroking it when it needs stroking, equalising the energy levels…”

I glanced across at him. The fear was gone from his eyes, to be replaced with something close to joy.

We gained altitude. Through a sidescreen I could see the land passing beneath us, made impossibly miniature by our elevation. Islands of cloud drifted by far below, and between them I made out beetling cars, tractors in fields, citizens going about their daily business oblivious of our history-making flight.

“Mach five and rising…”

I stared ahead through the main viewscreen. The central mountains were looming, and seconds later we were flying over their peaks. I stared down at the high fissures and folds, where snow still lay in long sweeps and curves like Arabic script. I made out the winding pass which we had taken the other day.