The Seeds of Time (42 page)

“He knew about your mother. He was told you were dead. DSDE, Clio. DSDE.”

“No! Not DSDE! You’re the same, can’t you see? No difference between what you’ve done to me, what they’ve done to him, what you all do when you’ll have your way and you have the power and we don’t.” Clio stood, approached Tandy as though she would strike him. He remained passive. “You’ve stolen his years, my years. You’ve murdered and stolen, and called it the public good, public welfare and safety.” Now, despite her hatred, she was crying, not wanting to cry, feeling hatred, but crying instead. “I hate you, I’ll always hate you. Don’t talk Milton
to me, confuse me with your stories. Let me keep it straight in my own mind at least. Let me at least know what I think!”

Tandy hadn’t moved, though his face hardened around the edges. “We’re heading out at sixteen hundred, Clio. I expect you to be ready.”

“You want me to fly, then you got to give me assurance of Petya’s safety.”

“You have my word on that.”

A pause for a sneer that overtook her mouth. “Not good enough, Tandy. I want him here. On the
Galactique.”

Tandy’s mouth flattened for a moment. He started to say something, stopped. “You think he’ll be happy on this ship, Clio?”

Happy. That he could use that simple, pure word, toss it off, use it against her, it made her tremble with rage. “Just … don’t talk to me … about
happy.”
She faced him for several long moments. “We’re not going to talk
happy
, we’re going to talk getting him off meds. You and your Nazi doctors can keep your damn pills away from my brother! You hear me? He doesn’t need tranks, he’s never been violent, and you’re not going to null him out with pills! You tell them that!”

Tandy nodded his head, calmly, maddeningly.

“And Petya stays with me. From now on, he stays with me! He’s coming along, or I don’t fly. Is that clear?”

Finally Tandy said, “Yes, clear. He comes along.” He rose. “You always like to protect people, don’t you, Clio? Always rescuing. Folks in your barracks, that young woman and her baby. Your brother. Maybe someday you’ll give up trying to fix other people and look to your own self-interest. You might find that some people, like Petya, are doing just fine without you. My guess is that will be a bleak day in your life, when you find that each of us is responsible for ourselves. When that day comes, look in the mirror. Ask Clio what she wants for
herself.”

He stepped to the door, opening it. Ryerson snapped to attention.

“Take her to her cabin,” Tandy said.

A knock at the door. Clio snapped awake from a deep sleep. A spacer’s habit, nap when you can, and wake up fast. Hadn’t lost the knack.

“Come in,” she said.

Door opened, revealing Tandy’s aide.

“Get up, Finn,” Ryerson said. “You’ve got A Shift.” He didn’t say
Lieutenant
Finn, just Finn. No Biotime rank even though a freeping Dive pilot, couldn’t bring themselves to reactivate her commission. “I’ll take you to the galley,” he said.

She splashed water on her face, toweled off, stared at him. “Wait outside, then,” she said. He left the room; then she used the head and zipped on her boots, pulled the cap as far down as it would go.

Out in the corridor, Clio faced her waiting escort. “Look, I know where the galley is. You tell Tandy I won’t be needing baby-sitters on board.” She stared him into uncertainty.

“You wait here,” he said, walking to a wall comm unit. Punched at the keypad, lips moving. Looked over at Clio. “You’re clear, then. On your own, Finn.” As he strode past her he said, “Been a pleasure.”

Clio watched him disappear down crew deck, boots tinny against the grated metal. She stood for some moments nearly alone in the corridor. Crew cabin doors on both sides, and names on plates:
KYOO
,
HANSEN, TOBISON, LEE, MIJANOVICH
. She wondered where they had stashed Petya. Possible he was somewhere among these cabins, maybe confused, probably scared. She hoped he was OK, hoped to God she’d
made the right choice. Thought about Tandy saying,
Maybe Petya does just fine without you
, thought about trying to save the people she loved, and how badly she’d always failed. Now here they were, dragging her brother along on a mission they might be lucky to survive, and she’d never asked him what
he
wanted to do.

She looked around her. To her left, the crew deck stretched sixty-some meters to the loading-bay hatchway. Halfway down was an open area with seating and what looked like vid terminals. No one sitting there now. Everyone with a task to do, and most in a hurry to do it.

To her right, a few cabins leading to medlab and, next, the hatchway down to mid-decks.
Can, by God, go where I please
.

She headed to mid-decks, drawing a stare from a botany tech. He glanced at her head, her scalp. Couldn’t look good, for sure. She brought her hand up, petting the prickly stubble at the edges of her cap, and followed him down the ladder to mid-decks.

The aroma of coffee led her to the galley door. As she entered, a half-dozen heads turned, looked her up and down. No welcome there, except from Meg Voris, squirreled away in the corner with a table to herself, though the place was short of seats. Clio ignored Voris’ wave, and went to the refrigeration hatch, where she pawed through the tubes, grabbed one that read
STEAK AND EGGS
, popped the top off, and squeezed a bite of breakfast into her mouth. Could have warmed it, but less time spent in present company the better, maybe. Leaned against the counter, watched as several of the crew finally gave up inspecting her and went back to their game of cards. Next to her, on the counter, a pile of leaflets. Rendered in full color, a drawing of a man and a woman each holding the hands of their children, facing into the sun, rising behind lush hills. Clio put the leaflet back on the pile, finished off the tube and flipped it into the recycler.

Voris was at her side, handing her a cup of steaming coffee. “I’m A Shift, too,” she said. “How can you eat? I
never
can eat before a mission. I get sick to my stomach.
Tea is all I can tolerate.” She held her cup up as evidence. “It’s not that I’m nervous, just a nervous stomach. You know what you do when you’re nervous? Just deep-breathe. It
really
helps.” She looked eagerly at Clio.

Clio stared at the woman.
My God
.

“You can call me Meg. We’ll get to know each other real well, so might as well be on first-name terms.”

Clio’s eyes narrowed at her. “Well, Voris, how soon till we undock?” The coffee was as black as jet fuel and tasted about the same. Delicious.

“Ninety minutes,” Voris answered. “But don’t worry, I’ve got this one, just ride it out, then we’ll do a run-through.”

“Not worried,” Clio said through slurps of coffee.

“Of course you’re not. I didn’t mean to say that. Probably you could fly this thing with your eyes shut, right?” Voris’ big dark eyes blinked once, slowly, beneath a broad curtain of bangs.

Intercom was toning them to a meeting in observation deck. Clio tossed back the last of the coffee and followed the group out to the meeting room just down the corridor, managing to lose Voris in the press of bodies. A few Biotime crew clustered around observation’s open door, and, seeing her approach, loosened up to make way for her, staring. She pushed into the crowded room, smelling of too many people. From behind the row of crew standing at the back, she saw Captain Hocking and Commander Singh conferring on the semicircular platform in front of the viewports. Clio pushed her way forward enough to see Hocking approach a lectern that was just now rising from the floor.

Somewhere between the time he stood with Commander Singh and got to the lectern, a spacer’s worst nightmare broke loose.

As Hocking walked toward the lectern, his movements were framed by the viewports and the outside gantry from which a five-hundred-gallon drum hung suspended from steel cables. One moment the drum was a solid black cylinder like any other and the next moment it erupted in a roar and blast of fire, followed closely by its echoes or more
explosions down the dock. The blast hit the viewport in a wave of fire, lighting up the room with a white flash, and freezing the crowd for a moment on Clio’s retinas, though many rushed to flee the room. Clio felt herself thrown aside by the shove of bodies, felt her feet leave the deck, and her shoulders forced forward and down, as someone’s hand slammed into her back. Now, with the wind knocked out of her, Clio fought to stand against the rush of crew to their posts. The air rang with emergency bells.

She felt a clamping grip on her upper arm jerking her forward, and, instinctively, she yanked back as shouts for order broke over the blare of the Klaxon. The hand jerked her again, and then she was face-to-face with Timothy Ashe, who pulled her toward the bulkhead.

“You …” Clio said, catching her breath. “You damn near pulled my arm off.”

“You’re welcome.” Ashe crouched by her side, body almost relaxed-looking, but eyes intent on the viewports. His face wasn’t handsome exactly, but life in the eyes, oh yes, a fire there. Clio rushed to distance herself.

“All stations!” someone was shouting nearby. “All stations!”

Now, through the thinning ranks, Clio could see the viewports and the scene outside in the loading bay. The gantry cables flapped wildly as debris shot through the bay toward what could only be the breached outside bulkhead doors. The bay was depressurizing by the moment. A uniform cartwheeled past the viewport, trailing red globules, followed by an empty spacesuit—headless, like the uniform.

Singh’s face appeared in front of Clio. “Report immediately,” he shouted, “immediately!” and hurried off. Now, through the nearly empty room, the bells rang deafeningly. Clio staggered to her feet, rubbing her shoulder.

“Report where?” she shouted after Singh.

“The bridge,” Ashe said. “Maybe the captain wants to get the hell out of here.” He rose to stand, somewhat taller than she. Then his eyes flicked their attention past her face to a point beyond the viewports.

Clio turned in time to see the gantry topple and lurch
down the dock like a gigantic insect in its death throes. As it slid out of sight, a cable flicked at the viewport. Its steel hook slid slowly off the plasiglass without leaving a scratch.

Then all was silent as the Klaxon ceased. Several people lay or sat on the deck nursing their hurts. Clio turned to the nearest, an older sergeant holding his ribs with both arms.

“Forget him,” Ashe said. “Commander Singh wants you on the bridge.”

“I don’t need your advice, Ashe. I’m already in as much trouble as I can be.”

“I don’t think you are, Clio,” he answered. “Not by a long shot.”

Med techs were arriving with their kits. Clio turned and ran for the bridge, leaving Ashe frowning after her and the techs to minister to the fallen.

She jammed up the ladder to flight deck. There, Hocking, Singh, and Voris hunched frantic at stations, as the scramble of voices piped over comm, and the dock slid by the viewports in a slow crawl. The captain, on headphones, scowled in her direction, turned away, demanding clearance to undock, while ship was undeniably under way. Singh bobbed his head at her, eyes glancing toward the copilot’s chair, where she threw herself, clamped in, and donned headphones to catch the pandemonium of Vanda Control. As Clio watched, Voris punched in prelaunch sequences in a blur, and ship’s systems sang through the flight deck’s electronic skin. Amid the commotion, Clio had time to notice that the kid was fast, real fast.

“Bay doors dilated ninety-one percent, Captain,” she said, “we’ve got clearance, but it’s close.”

“Take her out, Lieutenant,” he said,
“now.”

The ship backed out of the wreckage of the loading bay, leaving behind flailing hoses leaking fuel and the remains of the catwalk railings swinging within an arm’s length of the ship. The deck beneath Clio’s feet vibrated hard as docking rails carrying the massive ship struggled with their load. Clio felt the rumble travel up to her scalp, shaking her bones on the way.

“Get us
out
of here,” Hocking said. Ship’s systems rose to a whining pitch and keypads glowed warnings. The lights threw a florid cast over Voris’ face, and crimson sweat ran down her hairline.

The bridge viewports cleared the station doors as Voris punched up the vernier engines and moved
Galactique
into space. Clio’s pulse revved up along with
Galactique
’s engines. She skimmed the instrumentation quickly, ran her fingers over the boards, lightly, a caress. Nothing to do but watch Voris, and itch to take over. Back in the pilot’s seat, by damn. Not that she cared, but back on flight deck and heading out, and heading out to
Niang
. She ran her fingers along the power-distribution switches.

“Finn,” from behind her.

Swiveled the chair to see Jared Licht standing there.

Hocking pointed a finger at her. “Get him off the bridge, Finn.”

Jared Licht. As her heart fell through her diaphragm, Clio tried out one of her old jaunty smiles. Punched it up, hoped it did the job.