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Authors: Sherry D. Ramsey

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One's Aspect to the Sun (9 page)

BOOK: One's Aspect to the Sun
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He stroked my hair briefly with a hand that trembled just enough to notice. “There never was much we couldn't take on together, was there?”

“Nope, there never was,” I agreed. “Let's go see how Dr. Ndasa's doing. If you feel up to it.”

“I feel better than I have in a long time, to tell you the truth. One thing, though,” he said, squeezing my hand instead of letting it go. “The crew—they still don't know about you, do they? And me—us.”

“Only Rei,” I said. “She knows some of it.”

“And we'll keep it that way? I don't mind, but I thought you might be wondering if I would.”

Sudden tears stung my eyes. “It's not the way I've ever wanted things to be, Hirin. All this secrecy. Especially now.”

“I know. But I've had lots of time to think about it, and it's just the way things are. Frankly, I'm surprised you haven't left me for a younger man before this.”

I looked up, stricken, but his eyes twinkled as he tried to suppress a grin. I put my hands on my hips.

“Keep that up and I just might, old man. Now are you coming with me?”

“I think I'll have a lie down and rest until supper time. I'll come to the galley to eat. I can't wait to have different people to talk with.”

Since Dr. Ndasa was our only other passenger, I'd put him in one of the two larger cabins. He'd shown up with a lot more gear than I'd expected, but I let him put that in the smaller cabin that adjoined his, since it was empty anyway. He thanked me sheepishly. A mild scent of grapefruit hung around him, a sign of nervousness in Vilisians. I'd been studying up on the Vilisian scent-language in preparation for his time with us.

“I've never been away from my laboratory for this long before,” he apologized. “It was difficult to leave things behind.”

“If you do it often enough you learn to travel light, but it's no problem.” I leaned against his stack of mismatched luggage. “I'm curious, Dr. Ndasa. Are you really travelling all this way on the off-chance that you'll catch up to this researcher? She could be long gone by the time we get to Kiando.”

He nodded. “Yes, yes, I know. But Chairman Buig, her employer, is reputed to have connections to many of the best longevity researchers. He has a miniature research facility set up there, but the work coming out of it is not small. If this particular lady has moved on, it will still likely be a worthwhile journey for me.” He flushed slightly, his amber skin darkening. “And besides, I have never taken an out-system journey before. I was born on Earth. I believe everyone should experience wormhole travel once in their lives.”

I smiled. “I think so, too. I hope you'll be comfortable with us.”

He looked around the cabin, the long smooth plait of his dark hair swinging across his back. “The room is quite perfect,” he said. “And I love the name of your ship,
Tane Ikai.
Do you have an interest in longevity as well, Captain Paixon? I assume you know for whom your ship is named?”

“A passing one,” I said easily. “I know it's named for the Japanese woman who lived to one hundred and fifteen back in the twentieth century.”

Dr. Ndasa nodded eagerly. The grapefruit scent was fading. “Most people live that long now, but back then it was notable. I believe, however, that it is possible to extend the human and Vilisian lifespans almost indefinitely.”

“We've thought that for a long time, but we never seem to make a breakthrough.”

“The Longate tragedy certainly set the research back,” he said. “But I think people might be ready to trust again. The knowledge is out there. I think we are very close. There have been rumours in the scientific community—but of course, they are only rumours.” He was staring at me intently, his dark eyes unreadable. Could he suspect . . . no. Surely just an alien thing.

“What's the name of this researcher you hope to find on Kiando?”

“Demmar Holsey,” he replied. “Although Chairman Buig is building quite a stable of researchers there. She is only one of perhaps a dozen, but I have heard especially good things about her work.”

The name meant nothing to me, but I had hardly expected it would. My mother had been living under aliases for so long she might not even remember her real name.

Dr. Ndasa rubbed his long-fingered hands together and looked around the room again. His skin smelled mildly floral now, with excitement. “I hope to learn much on this voyage. It should be an excellent spot for quiet study.”

I laughed. “I don't know about that, but we'll see. I've never thought of this crew as 'quiet.'”

I left then to see what was happening for supper, found that Baden and Yuskeya had things well in hand with some spicy Vileyran dish underway, and went back to the bridge to look over the cargo manifests. Everything was on board except one shipment of ore bound for Renata, so we'd leave as soon as that arrived, early in the morning.

Supper was a jovial affair and I was optimistic that this would be a restful run. Sometimes passengers complicate things and everyone ends up ill at ease, but I didn't need to worry about Hirin, and Dr. Ndasa seemed to get along well with everyone. He had an endless supply of interesting stories from his interview subjects. I wondered what he'd think if he knew my true age. No doubt he'd want to interview me every day for as long as the journey lasted.

That night I found it difficult to fall asleep. It wasn't that my circadian rhythms were out of sync with Earth's—we always made the necessary adjustments in the approach to a planet to make sure we didn't suffer from space lag. I sleep better planetside than out in space, but not planetside on a silent ship. That's the worst. No pulse of engines for comfort, no sprawling, majestic vastness of starry space outside the viewport. Not even the normal sounds of the world beyond the spaceport. Just utter silence in a big metal can.

That wasn't the problem tonight. I knew very well what it was—Hirin was only a few scant meters away from me, just across the hall, and I longed to go over and curl up in the bed beside him.

Not for sex—we'd not looked for that very often since he'd become sick. Just for the warmth and companionship and because there wouldn't be many more nights when I could listen to his breathing beside me and feel the soft rise and fall of his body next to mine. There were nights when I missed him no matter how many light years and wormhole skips separated us, but it was easier to dismiss when time and distance were insurmountable obstacles. When I could cross the hall to him in less than ten seconds, it was harder to ignore.

I looked at the clock: one a.m. already, and I hadn't closed my eyes yet. I weighed the consequences. What if someone saw me? I had no idea if the rest of the crew were sleeping or pursuing their own nighttime activities. How could I explain creeping into the bedroom of my elderly “relative” in the middle of the night? It would raise more than eyebrows in this bunch. They wouldn't rest until they knew everything.

Yet here I was, Captain of the ship, and afraid to venture outside my cabin door? It was ludicrous. I could always plead a trip to the head or a midnight snack if someone saw me emerge, after all.

After another hour of debating, I decided to risk it. I pulled on my robe and threw together some clothes for the morning. I felt silly, and excited, like a teenager sneaking around on her parents.

When I stealthily opened my door, the corridor was dark, broken only by a pale yellow glow from the guidelight in the galley. No-one else seemed to be stirring. I picked up my bundle of clothes and stepped out into the hall. A noise halted me.

It didn't come from the direction of the crew quarters, but from the stern. I knew that peculiar tinny echo, the click of a step on a metal ladder. Someone was climbing up the hatchway from the lower decks. Trying to be quiet about it.

I took a silent step backward to the doorway of my cabin and let the clothes I was carrying slide to the floor. I shrugged out of my long robe and let it slip down as well—I didn't want any encumbrances. Whoever it was would find out that I favoured biosilk sleepsuits in bright colours, but at that moment I didn't care.

What really worried me was that I couldn't get to the weapons locker. To do so I'd have to run towards the intruder climbing up from the engineering deck, and that just wasn't practical or smart. I should have stepped back into my room and hit the general alarm button on the comm pad, but to be honest I just didn't think of it.

I took one more careful step inside the doorway of my room, just to be out of the glow from the galley guidelight. Whoever was coming would have to step through that glow, however, and I wanted to be able to see them without being seen.

Another light step sounded on the corridor decking. A shadowy figure rounded the corner of the weapons locker, close enough to notice me if the lights had been on.

The figure gestured with something I couldn't discern, and the guidelight went out.

I hadn't seen a face, only a dark silhouette, but it obviously wasn't anyone who belonged here. It took me a nanosecond to make up my mind. I launched out of my doorway at a dead run.

My shoulder hit the intruder in the chest with as much force as I could gather. I swung for a neck pressure point, and yelled, “
Intruder!”
Strong arms thrust around me in a vise-like grip and started to squeeze. Good thing I'd gotten one good yell out first.

My right knee came up reflexively and I knew the assailant was a man, since he arched deftly away from the blow. As soon as both feet were on the ground again I squatted low, then sprang up like a coil, twisting away at the same time. He couldn't keep the pressure steady and his grip loosened, enough for me to drop to the floor and swing my leg at his feet, knocking him off balance. He thudded against the airlock door, and the vibration triggered an automatic overhead emergency light. One step brought him close enough to kick me sharply in the solar plexus, though, and my breath
whooshed
out in a painful gasp.

I twisted around to try and get a look at the intruder, but a black biosuit concealed him from head to toe. He bent over me swiftly and something cold and sharp pierced the flesh of my upper arm, right through my sleepsuit. I swore, jerking and rolling away from the pain, still gasping for breath. The intruder moved away, back toward the hatchway, although all of this happened in a fraction of the time it takes to tell it.

I think it was about then that I heard other doors opening and the soft pounding of bare feet in the corridor. Someone was answering my summons.

I heard a step on the ladder, no attempt to be quiet this time, just as two sets of legs flashed past me. There was a bit of yelling and thumping then, as Viss and Yuskeya attempted to catch hold of the escaping intruder and haul him back up from the ladder.

Dr. Ndasa emerged from his cabin, inquiring sleepily about the disturbance. A faint metallic scent—confusion and apprehension—wafted from him. I was trying to mumble something reassuring when there was a yell and an ominous thud from far below.

Viss swore under his breath, turned to me and barked, “Are you all right?”

“He just—jumped,” Yuskeya said in a low voice. Her eyes were wide and her voice shaky. “Viss had his arm and then—
idioto!
Did he think he could fly?”

Still breathless, I crawled over to the open hatchway and looked down the nine meters to the decking of the cargo level below. A dark shadow lay sprawled and still on the unforgiving metal, and I really, really didn't want to be the one to go down there.

Viss saved me the trouble. “Yuskeya, see why the Captain has blood on her pretty sleepsuit, would you? Doctor her up if she needs it. I'm going down to see what's cluttering up our nice clean cargo pod.”

I found my voice. “Viss, wait, don't go alone. Here's Baden, he'll go with you.” Baden came down the hall at a run then, shirtless, eyes wild.

“What the hell—?”

“Baden, go down to the cargo deck with Viss. There was an intruder aboard, he fell down the hatchway, and we need to know what shape he's in.”

One thing about Baden, he never asks needless questions. He started down the ladder after Viss without another word.

Suddenly all the lights went up, and Rei called from up the hall, “All clear, Captain?”

“Clear, as far as I know,” I answered back, looking up the corridor. Rei emerged from the alcove that led to the head, cradling a plasma rifle and taking in the scene warily.

It was probably nerves, but I couldn't help it. I giggled and said, “What the hell are you doing?”

She looked momentarily hurt. “When I heard the racket I didn't think it was a good idea for all of us to run headlong into trouble. I grabbed this,” she said, hefting the rifle, “slipped out of my cabin, went up through the bridge and around through Sensors and the First Aid station. Thought I might need to catch someone by surprise.”

“They would have been surprised, all right.” Rei doesn't sleep in the nude, but the diaphanous rose-coloured thing she was wearing came pretty darn close. Alien genetics notwithstanding, Dr. Ndasa was trying not to gape and failing miserably.

“Wait,” I said, “you keep a plasma rifle in your quarters?”

“It's one of my souvenirs,” she said with a wicked grin.

“Come on, Captain,” Yuskeya said, tugging gently at my uninjured arm. Her hand was trembly. “Let's get up to First Aid so I can take a look at your arm.”

BOOK: One's Aspect to the Sun
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