Event Horizon (Hellgate) (34 page)

“There’s a plane on approach.”

“Coming up to the
Wastrel
?” Travers twisted to look back at the screen. He saw an IFF which was unfamiliar, though Etienne had already let it through without posting any security alert. “Now, where did she come from … and who the hell is it?”

“It has to be a classified IFF,” Marin mused. “I guess it was on the old need to know basis, and we didn’t need to know. Look at the vector.”

The spaceplane had not come up from Omaru. The flightplan listed Ceduna as the point of departure – the small, rocky world in the outer system, bearing a century-old mining installation which had been shut down since Goldman-Pataki found richer lodes elsewhere. All Travers knew about Ceduna was that it was frozen, lifeless, with a wispy atmosphere of gases liberated from its rocks and left over from at least one cometary impact, all but the heaviest of which had bled away to space a billion years before.

“What the hell would anybody be doing out there?” he wondered, “especially in a plane this size.”

The incoming craft was in the same class as the Capricorn, unsuitable for long flights or extended layovers.

“There was plenty happening on Ceduna before the blockade,” Marin mused. “I read the file when Shapiro assigned us here the first time. Goldman-Pataki spent about eighty years ripping the planet to shreds. They gouged out vast undergrounds – a lot of Omaru’s toxic industry was installed there, to keep the rot out of the homeworld itself. Mind you, Fleet hasn’t kept up surveillance on it since the blockade was set up. They just chased the human crew the hell out, deactivated the drones, shut down the AI and left Ceduna to rot. And even if Fleet should have been watching it …” He gestured at the screen, where docking information was displayed now. “If this plane’s classified, and if she’s come straight to the
Wastrel
, Rusch would have called off the dogs, let her hide there.”

“So she could have been hiding there for some time,” Travers mused.

He broke off as Vaurien stepped out of the Ops room, headed aft to the service elevators. Richard paused for a moment and looked into the crew lounge. “You might want to come along.”

“Someone we know?” Marin drained the last of his Riesling and got moving.

“We all do.” Vaurien smiled wryly. “We’re coming full circle, Curtis. It’s been a long haul.”

Jazinsky appeared behind him, dragging a pick-style comb through the mass of white-blonde hair. She had changed, showered; the hair was still damp and she was in pale denims and a tunic of Resalq designs, burgundy, green, gold.

“You know who’s just come aboard,” Travers guessed as he pushed up to his feet.

“Oh, yeah.” Jazinsky shoved the comb into her hip pocket. “Endgame, Neil. This whole thing started when Bobby Liang’s kid was killed. Murdered. What was the name of that ratshit sergeant?”

“Neville.” Even now Travers could not speak the man’s name without a rush of distaste. “Roy Neville.”

“He’s the one.” Jazinsky drew her fingers through her hair, fanning it, encouraging it to dry. “You smuggled the data off the
Intrepid
, brought it to us. We took it to Chandra Liang, he went right to Dendra Shemiji. Curtis took the assignment – which, incidentally, Mark would have told him to leave alone! Good thing for us all he didn’t confer with Mark.”

The elevator had opened as she spoke, and was going down and aft to the hangar as she fell silent. “We should have known,” Vaurien said tersely. “Mark’s ships were out there for years. The
Aenestra
surveyed as far as Orion 359, hunting for traces of Zunshu activity beyond Hellgate – we should have
known
, if he hired time on independent computers, Fleet would catch up with us.”

“Not necessarily,” Jazinsky argued. “Research institutes do it all the time – and the overload of data, the Resalq encryption, weren’t the only things that brought Harrison to Saraine, Mark’s house, that day.” She gave Marin an amused look. “You had no way of knowing the access codes you used to set up the hit on Neville came from one of Sondra Deuel’s spies, but the flags went up instantly in Harrison’s office, soon as you used them to log in.” She snapped her fingers. “The truth is, he had us right there even before you went aboard the
Intrepid
. And speaking of Sond and Bobby, you know they’re handfasting?”

“Again?” Vaurien did not look surprised. “They handfasted before. They were married for fifteen years.”

“And estranged, and divorced, and reunited by the death of their kid, and now they’re thick as thieves.” She nodded slowly. “I like it.”

Vaurien shot a sidelong glance at her as the lift stopped and Travers and Marin stepped out. “Was that a broad hint?”

“You mean, did I just propose to you?” Jazinsky laughed, a deep sound of genuine humor. “God knows, Richard. We’ve been partners a long, long time. Wouldn’t make any difference, would it, if we handfasted.”

“It might,” Vaurien said darkly as he followed Travers and Marin, “get Teniko off my case. Permanently.”

“He’s bugging you?” Travers was surprised. “You came down on him like a load of bricks, and I haven’t seen you say two words to him since you let him come back aboard after Riga.”

“That’s because I haven’t said two words.” Vaurien had come to rest at the hangar’s inner lock, where the monitor showed pressure and temperature levels. The incoming ship was shutting down engines and the hangar had just begun to cycle. “But he … watches me.”

“I’ve watched him watching,” Marin said without amusement. “He eats you alive with his eyes. And it bugs you. If it wouldn’t make any difference if you and Barb didn’t handfast, it wouldn’t make any difference if you
did
.”

For just a moment Vaurien frowned at Travers, and Neil asked softly, “What, you need my blessing? What for? You and me … it was a lifetime ago, Richard. We don’t even live in that same universe now.”

Vaurien’s brows rose and he exhaled a long sigh. “All very true.” He favored Marin with a rueful smile and then slid one arm around Jazinsky, though he spoke to Travers. “We filed the documentation for the full, legal business partnership. Anything happens to me on the Lai’a expedition, Barb inherits the lot. The ships, everything.”

“Don’t even say it,” Jazinsky growled.

“Superstitious?” Vaurien leaned back to look at her.

“Not especially. But I’m not in the habit of taking risks.” She reached up, splayed one hand over the red hair which was bound in its customary tail, but before she could speak again the green bars winked on in the monitor and the hangar door slid open.

The air was chill, breezy, sharp with the acid chemistry of hot engines. The ship was one of the big Marshalls, Travers did not know the model. The ramp was extended, and as he walked out across the ringing black steel deck the passengers headed down. Marin murmured as he recognized them, and General Kristyn Bauer waved in greeting.

A pace behind was her husband, Mike Quinn, and two tall, leggy blond youths lagged back, hesitant. They were half Pakrani, taller than Bauer already, though Travers guessed they would be no more the mid-teens, and Kris Bauer was a tall woman. They looked much more like Quinn, and if Travers was any judge they would grow up good-looking. Bauer was in dress grays, elegantly coiffured, though the rest of the family were in sweats and teeshirts; and the look on Quinn’s handsome face was far from approving.

“Captain Vaurien, Doctor Jazinsky, how nice to see you again.” She offered her hand, and they shook it. “It’s been a long time.”

“And now we’re counting every hour,” Vaurien said ruefully.

Bauer wore a smile as she offered the same hand to Travers and Marin. “Colonel Travers, Colonel Marin … Harrison told me the news. Michael Vidal was recovered from Hellgate. I’d already left Velcastra when you visited, just before the
Chicago
, and the battle.”

“What brings you here?” Marin was asking in a shrewd tone that told Travers he could guess.

She gestured over her shoulder, in the rough direction of Bahrain. “Harrison has asked me to take command of the
Sark
, in these interim weeks. When the war is done, and won, I’m out of the service and going
home
. Santorini, Pakrenne.” She gave Jazinsky an almost impish look. “I’ve come to long for peace and quiet, blue skies and green seas. But until we settle with the Terran Confederation I’ll be on the
Sark
with Patricia Haugen.”

“You’ll be safe there, all of you,” Vaurien assured her – he was looking at Quinn, too. “It’s over here, Mr. Quinn. When a battle group arrives to punish Omaru, they’ll fly into the same weapon that destroyed them at Velcastra. You’ve nothing to fear, and your family will be comfortable on the
Sark
.”

The man’s voice was deep, rich with the accent of Pakrenne, faint overtones of the ancestral Scandinavian coming through the pleasant slur of the contemporary Slingo. “I know, Captain, and I’m grateful for your concern. You’ll forgive me if I say I wish I was elsewhere, but the fact remains, this is the safest place outside Velcastra.”

“And I wanted them to go to Elstrom City and stay there,” Bauer said sharply.

“No.” Quinn made dismissive gestures. “Not while Shapiro is putting you on the front lines.”

“Front lines? Hardly, Mike,” she remonstrated. “As Captain Vaurien said, it’s
over
here. I’ll be quite safe.”

“Then so will we be,” Quinn said smoothly, with irrefutable logic.

She turned back to Vaurien’s group and spread her hands. “They’ve got me there. We’re on our way to the
Sark
directly. I came to the
Wastrel
first to meet Colonel Tarrant … President Tarrant.”

“He’s not president yet.” Jazinsky gestured toward the lock, and the lift. “Omaru will be declaring its sovereignty soon enough.”

“Come this way, General. Have you eaten? We set a good table,” Vaurien offered. “Colonel Tarrant has been told you’re aboard. He’ll join you shortly.”

“Excellent.” Bauer gave her husband an apologetic look. “I’ve a duty to do this, but you don’t. There must be far better things you can do on a ship like the
Wastrel
than sit listening to me talk politics for an hour.”

“That long?” Quinn’s lips compressed.

“You want me to be rude to the man?” Bauer dropped her voice. “Jesus, Michael, when the DeepSky Fleet switches gears and wakes up tomorrow as the Nine Worlds Commonwealth Fleet, Harrison and I’ll be taking our orders from a congress of civilian heads of government. Tarrant will be sitting at Robert Chandra Liang’s left hand while that idiot Prendergast from Jagreth will be on his right! Discourtesies won’t be forgotten.”

“But you said one minute ago,” Quinn argued – and it was clearly another round in an argument they had been having for some time – “you’re out of the service, you’re coming home.”

“
After
the handover,” Bauer’s tone was clipped. “You’re quite well aware Alexis is stepping down to do covert work and the Executive Officer on the
Kiev
– pardon me, the
Sark
– doesn’t quite have enough experience for us to dump a super-carrier into her lap and leave her to it. There’s a paucity of ranking officers with the experience and the nerve to step up to the plate. You want me to walk away?”

For a moment Quinn said nothing, and the answer was all too obvious –
yes, I do
. But at length he said, tautly and not giving any grant of approval to anything she had said, “You’ll do what you have to do, Kris, as usual. Captain Vaurien, I’m sure Colonel Tarrant will want some polite privacy to discuss sensitive matters. Perhaps the three of us can be somewhere else?”

“Of course,” Vaurien said smoothly. “Would you like to play a little? We have most of the new games. I’ll have dinner brought to you.” He glanced at the boys, saw their interest. “Ah! Compromise. It’s an art form. Come this way, Mr. Quinn.”

“I should get back to Ops.” Jazinsky was looking at her chrono. “There’s a bunch of work to finish, if we’re ever going to get out of here.” She gave Bauer a smile. “I’ll drop in for a snifter after dinner.”