The Stars Down Under (16 page)

The room itself was small, well heated, and full of standard Team Space furniture, including a long oval table of faux wood and swivel chairs with blue cushions on them. The walls were vidded lime green. In the two hours that Jodenny had been sequestered there, she'd paced a small track in the beige carpet, had memorized exactly how many steps took her from one wall to the next, and knew exactly how many white ceiling tiles comprised the overhead. An able technician had brought her juice and a sandwich on a tray but hadn't been able to answer any questions. The two guards standing outside the door didn't have any answers for her either.

“You're to stay here, ma'am, until someone comes for you,” they said, whenever Jodenny opened the door and asked.

She told herself that Myell was fine. That he could endure a trip through the Spheres without her. That Gayle might be a lying bitch but the Marines were trained in survival techniques. All they had to do was stay on the ouroboros loop, and they'd return to Bainbridge sooner or later.

Jodenny stared out at the snow-swept land. Bainbridge was a three-hour birdie flight away, and she damn well didn't appreciate the way she'd been taken here instead of, say, Kimberley, where she could even now be kicking up a fuss. Compass Bay was a small base set up for ocean and atmosphere monitoring, with only a small staff and limited resources. No civilians lived within several hundred kilometers, and the only way in or out was by launch field.

If they thought they were just going to leave her here, let her stew in worry while Myell was off being dragged around the universe, then they would be sorely surprised. Jodenny already had plans to call Admiral Mizoguchi the minute she got near a comm. Failing that, she had other paths to try. She was still a decorated hero of the
Aral Sea,
and had a queue full of unanswered media inquiries. Any of those reporters would be delighted with a scoop on Team Space's most secret project—

But even as she contemplated her options, Jodenny knew she couldn't reveal the secret of the Wondjina Transportation System to the general population. She'd end up in the brig for a good twenty or thirty years for violating her security clearance. Being in jail wouldn't help Myell at all.

Being stuck out here, in the cold armpit of nowhere, wasn't helping him either.

The door clicked open. A Team Space captain with gray bushy hair and a beak-shaped nose came in. Despite her anger, Jodenny stiffened to attention.

“Sir,” she said.

He said, “At ease, Commander Scott. Sit down.”

Jodenny took a seat across from him. Behind the captain, Leorah Farber and Teddy Toledo filed in and took up positions standing against the wall. Both had changed into business attire, and Toledo as usual looked too wide for his shirt. The captain had brought a single piece of paper with him, covered with handwriting so tiny that Jodenny could not decipher it upside down. The row of ribbons on his uniform was easily three times as large as hers, and his Alcheringa patches covered one entire sleeve. He wore no nametag.

“I'm Captain Fisch,” he said, meeting her gaze dead on. “Here to straighten out a few misconceptions and decide where to go from here.”

Jodenny said, “With all due respect, sir, would that be the misconception that Chief Myell volunteered for the mission he was dragged onto
by force,
by Marines holding
weapons
on him?”

She was proud of the way her voice stayed level. Fisch didn't blink at the accusation, nor did he look surprised. Jodenny thought Farber grimaced, but she wasn't looking at her straight on and couldn't say for sure.

Fisch replied, “You think what Dr. Gayle and Commander Nam did was wrong.”

“Yes, sir,” she said flatly.

“You too, Miss Farber,” Fisch said, without turning.

“Sir,” Farber replied. “I would have advised against it, if I'd been told.”

“Mr. Toledo?”

Toledo's cheeks turned pink. “I was very surprised, sir.”

“In retrospect, both Gayle and Nam should have been removed from the project,” Fisch said. He leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers together. His keen gaze hadn't shifted from Jodenny's face. “Both are too emotionally involved. Gayle is eager to be reunited with her husband, and Commander Nam has a relationship with Commander Gold.”

“Relationship?” Jodenny asked doubtfully.

“It developed while they were training in Swedenville,” Fisch said. “They were very discreet.”

Toledo coughed a little.

Jodenny didn't care if Nam and Gold were the most discreet lovers in the entire Seven Sisters, but she refrained from saying so.

Fisch's chair creaked as he shifted his weight. “As it so happens, Commander Nam did have authorization to go with the mission the moment a token was activated, regardless of who triggered it. It was our hope that whoever activated it would volunteer to accompany the rescue team. If not, the commander was authorized to conscript anyone he needed. Miss Farber, Mr. Toledo, your department wasn't briefed on that. It was on a need-to-know basis.”

Jodenny wished she were outside, in the tundra, where the icy air would cool her rising temper. She knew she had to be very careful, lest she end up in the brig.

“Sir,” she said, “Chief Myell has concerns about using the network. He has the right to refuse a direct order from Team Space without having a weapon pointed at his face.”

A frown pulled at Fisch's mouth. “Do you really think, Commander, that your husband would risk a court-martial for refusing a direct order? That he wouldn't want to save the lives of those missing people on Commander Gold's team?”

“He wasn't allowed to choose.”

“That wasn't my question.”

Deflated, Jodenny shifted her gaze to the tabletop. She stayed silent.

Fisch asked, “Do you trust him, Commander?”

“Sir?”

“Do you trust your husband?”

Her temper started to rise again. “Yes, sir.”

Fisch nodded. “Do you trust that he'll do his best to keep that token coming, if the lives of two teams depend on it?”

She remembered the surprise on Myell's face when the ouroboros arrived. “I don't believe he has control of it. There's no guarantee the network will keep running. It could stop tomorrow, and he wouldn't be able to do a thing about it.”

“But you don't know,” Fisch said.

“None of us know, sir,” Farber said from against the wall. “That was my whole argument in keeping Chief Myell out of the network. He's too valuable to risk.”

“What we know is that we're a damn sight closer to rescuing Commander Gold's team than we were yesterday,” Fisch said. “Whether Chief Myell can control it or not, the system seems to like him. He has a strong incentive to come home to you, Commander Scott. And he has a penchant for coming up like a daisy even when covered with shit, judging by his military records both official and unofficial.”

Jodenny would have argued, but Fisch wasn't done.

“The question is, what do we do with
you
in the meantime?” he asked.

“I have my own job, sir. In Kimberley,” she said.

His eyebrows lifted. “No one believes you're going to go meekly back to your desk and do your duty like a shy ensign, Miz Scott. Your penchant for bending orders and jumping ranks to get what you want is well known, and fairly effective. Odds in the betting pool are three to one that you'll try to go back to Bainbridge on your own. Four to one that you'll go to other Spheres, maybe up at Waylaid Point. You trust your husband, Commander, but you also might be tempted to go out there and join him. Save the day.”

She didn't know whether to be appalled or flattered that people were taking bets.

“The question is, if you were me, what would you do with you?” Fisch asked.

She took her time answering.

“Temporarily reassign me here in Compass Bay, sir,” Jodenny said. “Far from everyone and everything. Take away my comm. Put me to work in some tedious job no one else wants.”

Toledo shuffled from one foot to the other. Farber said nothing.

Fisch replied, “Not a bad idea. Unfortunately, you know how to fly a birdie, you have the charisma to swindle a comm link out of some unsuspecting sailor, and after a day or so you'd probably do both.”

Jodenny asked, “Work from home back in Adeline Oaks?”

Fisch tapped his fingers on the table.

“Work from somewhere else?” she asked.

“Not work,” Fisch said. “Think of it as a
vacation.
”

*   *   *

Jodenny muttered to Farber, “I hate everything about this.”

Farber nodded. The birdie was full of civilian passengers, half of whom were clutching their armrests in fear. The other half were chattering in excitement and peering at the bright blue world of Fortune as it fell away from the vidded viewports.

“And I currently hate you, too,” Jodenny said to Farber.

Farber said only, “I understand, Miss Spring.”

Ellen Spring. A stupid name if Jodenny had ever heard one. She would never remember to respond to it. Did she really look like a civilian librarian? Like someone named
Spring
? The name rankled. More than she wanted to admit.

Captain Fisch had insisted on the fictitious cover story for her. “Passenger records are public, and we don't need any intrepid reporters tracing your temporary reassignment,” he'd said. “You'll go as a civilian, you'll conduct yourself as a civilian, and in two weeks you'll be back to find the rescue went well and Chief Myell's safe and sound. In the meantime, we'll all be happy that you're staying out of trouble.”

Sitting on the birdie, Jodenny scowled at the memory and elbowed Farber's arm off the armrest.

“There she is,” Farber said, adjusting the vid. “The
Kamchatka.
”

Jodenny didn't look. The
Kamchatka
was one of a half-dozen freighters that regularly transited the Little Alcheringa between Fortune and Earth. The duty was tedious and unglamorous. The ships were old and built for capacity, not grace or speed. The
Kamchatka
's captain was probably some bitter old officer only a year or two from retirement, saddled with a crew who couldn't score better assignments elsewhere.

“That's our ship, Mommy Kate,” said a young girl across the aisle.

One of the women traveling with her said, “That's it, sweetie. Home sweet home until we get to Earth.”

Another woman in the same row said, “You aren't scared, are you?”

“Yes, she is,” said a girl sitting nearby. “She's scared of everything, Mommy Alys.”

Jodenny counted four young girls traveling together, all of them blond and fair skinned. Neither Mommy Alys nor Mommy Kate looked like the biological mother, but it was hard to say for sure.

It seemed a shame for such a healthy family to leave Fortune for the debased and ruined Earth, and Jodenny wondered if the mothers were missionaries. She couldn't imagine giving up the clean air of Fortune for the gray ashy skies of Earth, not without a damn good reason.

An old woman sitting behind Jodenny said, “It doesn't look very big.”

“Large enough for a hundred crew and twice as many passengers,” said the old man with her. “Don't worry. You'll find a drinking buddy or two.”

The woman said, “Bastard,” but she didn't sound vehement about it.

“Yes, but I'm your bastard, aren't I?” he replied.

Jodenny squeezed her eyes shut. She'd supervised sailors in the middle of divorces, sailors in acrimonious relationships, and it always appalled her how cruel married people could be to each other. She and Myell hadn't even had a serious argument yet, though they'd disagreed about Gayle's experiment, and gone to bed angry—

She should have listened to him, of course. Should have run from Gayle at first sight. Maybe things would be different now. Maybe not.

Thirty-four stations. A minute or two transit between each station. Just over an hour to make a complete loop, but of course they would have to stop for rest and food, and exploration, and who knew what kind of trouble they'd get into on far-flung worlds while they searched for Commander Gold's team.

“Do you trust him?” Fisch had asked, as if that had ever been in doubt. She believed Myell would do what was expected of him, that he would conduct himself with honor and courage, and that he would do everything he could to fulfill his promise to come home.

But the Sphere technology was unknown, Gayle and Nam harbored their own agendas, and the worlds they were visiting might be awash with lava, swept by dust storms, rocked by earthquakes. A thousand things could go wrong, and Myell was all alone. No, of course not, not alone. But solitary and quiet by nature. Uncomplaining. If he got sick or hurt he might not make a fuss, and they might overlook him.

She told herself that he was more than capable of taking care of himself and had been since he was eighteen and a runaway from an abusive home life. Besides, Nam wouldn't be in charge if he weren't at least competent.

Still, her eyes felt suspiciously watery. What kind of example was she setting as a military officer?

But today she was a civilian, and maybe a civilian woman could get a little teary-eyed at the prospect of not knowing where her husband was, what kind of danger he might be in, and if he'd ever return.

“We're here,” Farber said, as the birdie docked with a clamping noise. “I won't tell you the trip will go fast, but maybe it won't be as long as you think.”

Every minute will be an hour,
Jodenny almost said, but that was too melodramatic.

The docking lounge was a long, low compartment that badly needed fresh paint and a carpet cleaning. The green plastic chairs were scratched and dented. Warning vids on the wall listed prohibitions against bringing weapons or alcohol onboard. One by one the passengers had to file through security checkpoints, which Jodenny found annoying. They'd already been screened back on Fortune. Two security techs, both of them sergeants, checked passenger identification and ticket status.