Summerhill (13 page)

“Not right away, at least. There are so many people running the
Nusquam
that it’s a logistical nightmare to keep track of them all. Frankly, I suspect the Security Chief figured it out eventually, but by then I’d become so ingrained with the working of the ship that it probably made more sense to keep me than to kick me off.” Katherine sighed, then kept moving. “Which I hope means the Chief has a soft spot for me.”

After closing the hatch as silently as possible, Summerhill scampered after Katherine, who had already stood back up and was striding purposefully down the corridor that followed. They were in a more typical hallway now, leading away from the guts of the ship. “What if the Chief isn’t on your side?” Summerhill asked, remembering his awkward conversation with the genderless, shapeshifting dog-creature. “What then?”

“Then I guess I’m off to steal another lifeboat,” Katherine said. She stopped and looked back at Summerhill with a frown on her face. “And no offense, Mr. Summerhill, but on the chance that it
was
your presence that caused the on-board computer to freak out when scanning for a destination, I’m going to have to go alone.”

“Alone?” Summerhill felt his heart sink, and thought about his other self, bright blue eyes shimmering with earnestness. “But I’m... I’m supposed to stay with you.”

Katherine cracked a tiny smile, though there was a distinct look of pity on her face. “It’s sweet that you want to try to protect me. But I don’t think you can protect me. Not from this.”

She started to walk off again. “It’s not that,” Summerhill insisted as he trotted after her. “We make a great team, you and me. And I think you... well...”

A noticeable sag showed in Katherine’s shoulders as she tried to press on unfazed. She let out a sigh, then slowed to a stop again. “You think what?” she asked quietly without turning around.

Summerhill wrung his hands together. “I think maybe you’re the one who’s supposed to help me find home. Or something.”

Katherine let out a one-note laugh and shook her head in self-reproach. “I don’t know the first thing about your people or where you come from. To say nothing of how to get there.”

“No, but you know way more about this sort of thing than I do,” Summerhill pointed out. “Things like reality jumps and interdimensional law enforcement and—heck, you know how to shoot a gun.”

Silence hung between them. Katherine took out her stun pistol, looked at it for a few seconds, and holstered it again. “Look,” she said finally. “Let’s figure out what’s happening on the ship with the Consortium first. I’ve got my own problems that I kind of can’t ignore right now.”

Summerhill swallowed and nodded. “That’s fair.” He tried to brace himself for the reality that, in a matter of minutes, he might be out on his own again. “You lead, I’ll follow.”

As they got farther from the aft section of the ship, the sounds of machinery grew quieter, allowing Summerhill to make out other noises. Sometimes, he heard heavy footsteps on the deck above them. At least once he heard the unsettling rhythm of a small group of four-legged security robots pass by, heading in the opposite direction. He wondered if Katherine’s human ears let her hear the same things he did, but she was very visibly not in the mood for needless chatter.

What she did notice, not long after, was the hustle and bustle coming from beyond the next set of doors. She held up one hand to motion for Summerhill to stop, and she held her breath, listening intently for a few seconds. “This is the galley beyond here,” she explained. “I’m not afraid of cooks trying to jump me, but I want to make sure nothing weird is going on, first.”

Summerhill nodded, and stayed crouched behind Katherine just in case, his ears perked to listen for anything suspicious. Most of what he heard was the frenzied clattering of pots and pans, the clamor of kitchen staff milling about, shouting orders and acknowledgments. The
Nusquam
was host to the ultimate party, and so it made sense for the kitchen to be as crazy as the rest of the ship. Still, it sounded like a busy kitchen should, not like the cooks and bussers were under duress from a team of interdimensional agents armed with energy weapons.

Katherine apparently came to the same conclusion. “Let’s go,” she said, walking up to the doors. “Act casual. If anyone asks, you’re with me.” She adjusted the hem of her blouse to make sure her gun remained out of view, then pushed her way into the galley.

Countless rows of cooking and prep stations cut long parallel lines through the enormous galley. Summerhill tried to take in all he could as he fell in step behind Katherine, wondering how any one kitchen could prepare food for so many people of so many different species. There had to be some trick to it; the diversity among the cooks was no less impressive than the diversity of guests in the ballroom upstairs. Also, there were what looked to be specialized side-galleys branching off from the main one, though Summerhill never got close enough to see what was going on in any of them.

The way Katherine slipped through the overcrowded kitchen was akin to some migratory animal that somehow innately knew how to get to where it was going. Of course, she knew where she was going, but
how
she was doing it was something Summerhill had a hard time figuring out. He kept bumping into galley staff and tripping over people’s feet or pseudopods or whatnot, while Katherine moved completely unfettered. Perhaps there was some mystical art that hostesses picked up somewhere along the way, or maybe the staff all knew who she was and knew to stay out of her way; in any event, Summerhill was stuck mumbling hurried apologies and awkwardly sticking his arms out to wedge his way between packed rows of people while Katherine drifted farther away.

Summerhill’s nose was overwhelmed by the myriad dishes being cooked. With each step, new scents entered his nose, and his sense of smell alone made him even dizzier than the constant darting back and forth he needed to do in order to keep up with Katherine. Luckily, the black of her hostess’ uniform made her stand out from the galley chefs all decked in white, but the small sea of people wasn’t easy to navigate, and if Summerhill lost sight of her entirely, he might not easily find her again.

Thankfully, despite her hurried sense of purpose, Katherine finally came to a stop when she reached a branching corridor that led into one of the side-galleys. Only then did she turn to make sure that Summerhill was still with her. She did seem relieved, however belatedly, that she hadn’t lost him.

“Through here, there’s a stairway that’ll take us up,” she explained. “If we can make it up to one of the guest decks, I can check one of the computer terminals for any active security alerts.”

Summerhill scratched his chin. “Haven’t you still got your electronic clipboard and your earpiece?”

“Yes, but as soon as I tap into the shipboard network with either of those, they’ll know exactly where I am. And if they are out to get me, then I’m pretty well buggered, aren’t I?”

“Ah.” Summerhill was glad that Katherine knew as much as she did about what to do in this sort of situation. Even with all of his inexplicable knowledge from a lifetime before he could remember, he wasn’t equipped to deal with things like this. “So all we need to do is get through here, make it upstairs, and find a computer terminal?” And then find out whether Katherine was going to ditch him or not.

Katherine set one hand against the swinging door. “All while making sure we don’t get spotted by Security,” she confirmed. “The likelihood of which depends entirely on how much trouble I’m already in.”

She pushed the door open, started to step in through it, then stopped with a quick gasp before jerking back and slipping back around the corner. Summerhill tried to sneak a peek in through the door as it swung closed, but he didn’t see anything special. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Security?”

Katherine’s face was almost white, and she had a distant, hollow look in her eyes. “No,” she said, her voice dry. “
I’m
in there.”

Summerhill stared back and forth between Katherine and the now shut door. “Well that doesn’t make any sense,” he said, but even so, he was feeling nervous on account of her being so plainly aghast. “How can you possibly be out here and in there at the same time?”

How could he have met himself back in the World of the Pale Gray Sky?

“I know what I saw, Summerhill,” Katherine said. She’d regained a modicum of composure, and was now looking back at the door again. For several moments longer she stayed still, though her eyes flicked and twitched in thought and concentration. “I actually think I might know what this is all about.”

She cautiously edged the door open again, enough for both her and Summerhill to peek an eye into the galley area beyond without exposing themselves to view. At first, Summerhill didn’t see anything, but sure enough, not long after, an exact double of Katherine walked by.

“My shift is winding down in ten,” she said in Katherine’s voice. “I don’t suppose there’s anything else being sent up to the grand ballroom?”

An arm draped with red and blue feathers waved into view and then disappeared. “Not from here,” a cawing, vaguely male voice replied. “I won’t tell anyone if you want to ditch early.” He ended with a brief cackle of a laugh.

Next to Summerhill, Katherine brought her hand up to her mouth, muffling her quick gasp. “I was right, Mr. Summerhill,” she whispered. “This is last night, before I came to visit you in the brig.”

The fur along the back of Summerhill’s neck stood on end, and for an instant, his mind was overcome by the array of possibilities unlocked by having come back in time several hours. This was quickly supplanted by the more immediate questions and problems that arose from them being here now. “So what does this do to our plan?” he asked.

Katherine shushed up and leaned her ear closer to the door. The other her—the past her—was talking again. “Is that the meal for the prisoner?”

“Yup, yup,” squawked the birdlike voice. “Chief sent down some dietary guidelines. Showed me a picture, included some bio readings. Figured this’ll be the sort of thing he’d eat.”

Summerhill wondered how the Security Chief had gotten dietary specifications for what he would and wouldn’t eat. Did the
Nusquam
’s database have information on his species after all? Or had they simply made an educated guess? Presumably Katherine didn’t know one way or the other, but maybe, after they found this computer terminal—

“I can take that up for you, if you want,” the past-Katherine said.

“Security said they’ll send someone to make the delivery,” the chef replied. “Don’t worry.”

“It’s on my way up anyway,” past-Katherine said. “Tell Security I’ll handle it.”

Present-Katherine, meanwhile, looked uncomfortable, but she kept the door open, and kept her eye on the galley beyond. Summerhill watched her for a while, letting one ear pick up the conversation from beyond the door.

The chef sounded hesitant and concerned. “He’s a prisoner. Why not just let Security handle it?”

“Because,” past-Katherine said, “I’m not sure that he’ll eat something that a security officer brings him, but I think I can get him to trust me.”

Summerhill tried to catch the present Katherine’s eye, but she avoided his gaze.

“Trust you?” The birdlike chef cawed and chuckled again. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Because I don’t trust
him
,” the past-Katherine insisted. “I think he might be dangerous, even. But if I can get him to open up to me, maybe... I don’t know, maybe we can figure out what he is and what he’s doing here.”

Summerhill folded his ears back as present-Katherine bit her lip hard. “You think I’m dangerous?” he asked.

“That was before. Back then, I didn’t know you were—”

“And so all that stuff about telling me I could confide in you? What was that all about, huh?”

Katherine made eye contact with him again. “I wasn’t sure I could trust you back then,” she said, clenching one hand up into a small fist. “But like I said, that was—”

“Hey, you’re the admitted thief who’s on the run from the space police. If anyone should have trust issues here, I think it’s me.”

“Look, can we please argue about this later? We’ve got to—”

“Is someone there?” the other Katherine called out from the galley.

Present-Katherine quickly grabbed Summerhill around the muzzle, wrapped her other arm around his chest, and pulled him away from the door. The dog squirmed and kicked on reflex for a moment, but settled down as the hostess pulled him back up against the wall with her.

Dangerous. Get him to open up to me. Figure out what he is.
And now she might just abandon him after everything else. But then, she was a criminal on the run from the law. Why should any of this surprise him all of a sudden?

She held onto him for a little while longer, until the moment had passed with no further attention from within the galley. “Okay,” she told him, her mouth close to one of his big ears. “Now, if I remember things correctly, the chef tells me that the stew isn’t going to be done for a few more minutes, so I head back out into the main galley, do one last check of things, and then come back and grab the food. We just have to make sure we don’t run into, uh, me, and then we can cut through to the stairwell as originally planned.”

Summerhill nodded, and then to his surprise once more found Katherine’s hand coming in around his muzzle to hold it shut. He whimpered briefly until she whispered for him to shush again, and she kept her arms around him as she leaned flat back against the wall. Close to a minute later, the door behind them swung open, and out walked the past-Katherine, striding into the main galley, eyes fixed forward the whole time.

Katherine held Summerhill for another solid ten-count, then released him. “Okay, here’s the plan: I’ll head in there and distract the chef. You stay down and try to crawl on through to the other side, and whatever you do, don’t let him see you.”

“Got it,” Summerhill said, cracking his knuckles in an attempt to look serious. If Katherine was impressed at all, she didn’t show it.

After pushing the door open with one hand, Katherine motioned for Summerhill to get down on all fours before she entered the side-galley ahead of him. She approached the counter and set both her hands on it, leaning forward to address the chef.

Summerhill quickly crawled forward as the chef asked Katherine what she was doing back so soon. Katherine prevaricated with some follow-up questions about the food delivery and what the chef had heard about the prisoner, what sort of food preparation details had been sent down by Security, and so forth. It would be enough to distract the chef for a little while, but if anyone else happened to swing by while Summerhill was trying to crawl along the galley floor, there wasn’t any good excuse for him to fall back on.

Stealing a look around the corner of the center prep station, Summerhill saw that, contrary to the avian creature like he’d been expecting, the chef was actually some type of feathered lizard, brilliantly colored in bold reds, blues, and golds. His attention was on Katherine, with no sign that he was suspicious of anything. The lack of any obvious ears hopefully meant that he’d have a harder time hearing the dog scampering on his knees and elbows across the kitchen floor. The door to the stairwell that Katherine had mentioned was only a couple yards away.