The Bright Black Sea (17 page)

'Why...' I muttered again, not sure of just what I
was asking her.

She said nothing for a long moment and said. 'It's
complicated. I'll tell you what I know. I owe you my life, so I owe
you that much. But first I think we can risk a pulse transmission
to the
Lost Star
and
Silvery Moon
so our shipmates
don't get concerned when we don't show up tonight.'

'Dyn, it's Wil. I'm staying downside tonight. I won't
be up before the third or fourth watch. If you need a backup, go
with Ginger. I'd not trust either Astro or Orbit with the ship.
Fair orbits,' I said. I set the message up to be compressed and
sent on a narrow laser link when the
Lost Star's
orbit
brought it within line of sight. It'd be indistinguishable from a
standard tracking blip. I nodded to Min next to me in the pilot's
seat of the
Ghost
.

She switched on the camera before her and recorded
her message. 'Vyn, Tenry, don't wait up for me tonight. We've a few
loose ends to tie up tomorrow. Wil...' here she turned and gave me
a sidelong glance with smile, '… and I will stay aboard the
Ghost
tonight. See you sometime tomorrow. 'Night.' She
signed off and hit stop.

'Why did you do that?' I asked, mildly alarmed.

'Do what?' she asked with another sidelong glance and
a smile.

'You know – you just did again... What are they going
to think?' Given her rather disheveled appearance, her hair undone
and tie loose, jacket off, I could readily imagine what they might
think.

'Oh, you needn't worry, Captain Litang,' she said
with mock tartness.

'I'm not. Not exactly. But why risk giving them a
false impression?'

'Because they know me too well for me to get away
with a lie. I can't tell them the truth – they doubled as our
security detail and felt they'd failed when my parents were killed.
Never mind that they were aboard the
Silvery Moon
in transit
to Yendora orbit at the time. If they knew what happened tonight,
I'd never be able to go anywhere alone again, which is not
acceptable. So if I must lie I had to give them a different lie.
One I doubt they'll feel comfortable pursuing.'

'I suppose... ' I shrugged, and added with my own
sidelong glance. 'Though I'd think a more likely lie could be
found, if you really needed one.'

'Any suggestions? I haven't sent it yet.' she replied
archly. 'Give me a believable reason why I couldn't return to the
'
Moon
like I've done every day since my return.'

I just looked at her. 'Are you saying you've given
them a believable reason?'

She considered that for a moment and broke out
laughing. 'An excellent point! But the point is, believed or not,
they'll not ask about tonight. Which is all I want,' and adding
after a pause, 'I'm sure they'll be discrete, but if you really
mind, I'll re-do it.'

'No. I was just being my usual cautious self. Doesn't
matter. It'll confuse 'em when they see us together, though I hope
we're becoming less wary of each other,' I ventured.

'We're shipmates. Whatever else that comes along will
be in that context.'

'Shipmates it is. And I have to say, mate, we did
alright tonight.'

'Yes, we did. They had to run bloody hard to catch
us!' she laughed.

'I doubt it, I was only lumbering along,' I said.
'Still, I suspect they regretted catching us. That, in any case
will be my story – when I can tell it. Send your message and let's
get comfortable. I want to hear your yarn.'

'Oh, Captain! Yes, let's get comfortable,' she
laughed sarcastically hit the send button and slipped into the main
cabin.

I followed her out. There seems to be a certain
carefree joy in living after someone tries, and fails, to kill you.
We both were feeling it. Still, however fond of Tallith Min I was
feeling, I wasn't feeling foolish. We'd sealed a partnership –
running the
Lost Star
with mutual confidence in each other.
We'd become shipmates, a relationship that transcends even
friendship. But there are limits and she was watching me carefully
to see that I understood them. I'd no intention of giving her the
opportunity to spell them out.

She settled once more on the settee, drawing a
blanket over her spare legs. Though this pair looked real from a
distance, she considered them 'ugly'. I settled into the matching
settee across the narrow aisle.

'As you know,' she began after taking a sip of cha
from the mug she'd left on the shelf next to her, 'My parents were
killed when a space boat – piloted by a dead man – struck our boat
en route from the
Slivery Moon
to our country estate. The
odds that an uncontrolled space boat could strike another boat are
astronomical. And when you consider the fact that the supposedly
uncontrolled boat changed course three times in order to hit us,
you can see we're well beyond any possibility of it being pure
chance.'

'Three course changes! How could that've been
overlooked in the inquest?'

She shrugged. 'Air turbulence according to the
report, based on incomplete data. The black boxes somehow did not
survive the collision intact and the data was corrupted. And well,
with the other pilot and my parents dead, and I expected to die
shortly, the inquest was rather superficial.

'Anyway, I was at the controls heading down for our
country home when the automatic alert sounded, and the boat made
its automatic evasive maneuver to avoid the out of control boat – a
normal and effective response to avoid a crash. The other boat made
its first course alteration, bringing it back on collision course
and forcing our boat to make a second evasive maneuver. My boat was
fully operational and I let it make its programed maneuvers –
again, the standard operating procedure since the boat's AI reacts
faster than a human pilot. We're talking about maneuvers only
seconds apart. The other once again changed course just as my boat
began its avoidance maneuver, as if it was pre-programed to react
to the standard avoidance maneuver. Desperate to avoid a crash, I
banked my boat sharply, in the hope that we'd present a smaller
target. It proved to be the wrong maneuver, as the plunging boat
struck the upper hull of the passenger compartment, shearing much
of it off and killing my parents instantly. Still, enough of the
boat was left intact that I managed to remain conscious long enough
to crash land on an island beach five minutes away, though it left
me pretty much dead as well. I didn't regain consciousness until
four months later, on Kimsai, where Vyn and Ten had brought me in a
suspended animation box aboard the
Silvery Moon
. By the
inquest was over with the suggestion that my final maneuver had
nullified the space boat's automatic evasion which resulted in the
crash.' She paused. 'Pilot error.'

'But how'd they come to that conclusion? Even without
the black boxes, everything is tracked on radar.'

'Not as detailed as would be needed to determine the
sequence of the last two maneuvers. And so with the black boxes
mostly destroyed despite the fact that I landed the boat, it could
not be determined precisely what happened in those final seconds.
And since I was unable to speak at the inquest, expected to die,
and with everyone else involved dead, they didn't think it worth
the effort to keep the inquest open that I might speak..'

'Did you register an objection when you
returned?'

She shrugged. 'I didn't think it mattered and now,
when it clearly does, I need to stay dead for as long as possible.
However, since the other pilot apparently died in space, the Patrol
has an interest in the incident, and though they deferred to
planetary investigation because the boats collided in the
atmosphere, Vyn tells me that the Patrol has flagged the incident
as an open case, but won't investigate further unless something new
turns up.'

'And you don't think tonight qualifies as something
new? If you don't want to bring in the Guard, why not alert the
Patrol?'

She stared off into space for several moments before
turning to me, 'Tonight's incident is strictly a Guard affair and,
I find, I'm taking the whole affair very personally. I don't want
the Patrol involved, at least until I know a whole lot more about
what's going on and what's behind it. I don't know what my parents
where involved in, and I don't want go to the Patrol until I do.
After all, the Shipmates didn't run to the Patrol. I need to know
what this is all about before going to the authorities.'

I could see in her eyes that I wasn't going to change
her mind, so I tried a different track, 'What about the other
pilot? The dead one? What did the inquest determine happened to
him?'

'He was a sales representative for a rocket boat
parts supplier from Sanre-tay. He had the boat equipped with the
parts he was selling. He took a client from a Yendora based
shipbuilding firm out for a demonstration, returned, dropped him
off and took off for Port Prime only to end up crashing into our
boat. Very little of him was recovered from the crash. He was
presumed to have either lost consciousness or died during the
flight back to Port Prime. Hard to believe, but strange things
happen. I'm having people look into this sales rep, but don't
expect much. I can think of several ways they could have rigged it,
but I'll likely never be able to prove anything.'

'Well, it's impossible not to believe it was
deliberate,' I said. 'Not after tonight. I'll defer to your
judgment, Tallith, but I think that by not alerting the Patrol
you're missing the chance not only to find out more, but to bring
the killers to justice.'

She shook her head “no”. 'There are too many
unanswered questions involving my parents and Uncle Hawk. For all I
know, they may've been pirates. I think it's best left as a private
affair for now.'

'So, what exactly do you know about it? About
why?'

'Very little, and most of it guesswork. First, I
can't imagine anyone from their life on Calissant had any
motivation to murder them, so it must be out of the Four Shipmates
era,' she said. 'Given their yarns, that's not a great stretch.
Plus with this experience behind me, I can now see what Uncle Hawk
was afraid of when he advised me to stay on Kimsai.'

'It would be in keeping with the thrust of their
yarns,' I admitted.

'All four of the Shipmates have died in the last two
years.' she said quietly. 'Miccall's death seems natural, a result
of a long running heart problem. Uncle Hawk's accident would seem
rather suspicious since he'd been racing needle rockets for fifty
years, but there seems to be no way the rocket could have been
sabotaged.'

(Captain Vinden raced needle rockets, small powerful
plasma-electric rockets. He'd raced that day and was working on his
ship in his yacht's hangar when it exploded, killing him. He'd been
working alone and the needle rocket had been brought in directly in
from the race to the ship's hangar. And the only people on board
were his ship's crew, all of whom had worked for him for decades.
The chances of foul play seemed nil.)

'But my parent's deaths had to have been a carefully
planned murder.'

'Being ambushed and left for dead tonight, eliminates
any doubt.'

'Aye. It seems that their enemies finally found them
and went about killing them,' said Min. 'I believe Uncle Hawk
must've realized that. I saw him only one time after the crash. He
seemed anxious and on edge, beaten down and old. Both my brother
Jelter and I asked him about his and my parents' past, but he still
refused to say anything about it beyond reciting the old
tales.'

'I have to say Captain Miccall was never the same
after learning about your parents' deaths either. Thinking back
now, it seems that it was just after we heard the news that his
health or his spirit began to decline and he started handing more
and more of his duties off to me. A great deal of life had gone out
of him, though I never made the connection. Yet neither Miccall nor
Vinden made any real effort to change their lives. They could've
disappeared again.'

'Perhaps they'd run as far as they cared too, or
perhaps what they were trying to protect no longer mattered...' she
mused.

'I'd a great deal of time on Kimsai to think,' she
continued. 'I was confined to a recovery chamber for six months as
the doctors grew and replaced my damaged internal organs. I turned
the tales Uncle Hawk told over and over in my head and compared
them with the yarns Jelter –a decade older than I – had heard
growing up. We came up with a list of more than a hundred tales,
but soon came to realized that many of the yarns were just altered
versions of the same core stories, mutineers became pirates or
revolutionaries, planets and star systems changed names, ships,
times and sequences were altered to produce different yarns. But if
you distilled their stories, eliminating the repetition and
variations – and looked for a consistent theme, paying close
attention to the incidental details, like whether my parents were
married or just courting and such, you can arrange the yarns into
two eras. The first set, a narrative of daring efforts to reverse
an injustice, a theft or a political revolution. The second shifts
to years and years on the run from powerful enemies, one close call
after another. And , a big gap before settling down on Calissant
and the life we know them by.'

'I can easily believe you. When I saw them together,
there was something more to them than I could put my finger on.
Something tied them together. And there's always certain yarns that
struck you as far more likely than many of the others. Do you have
any clue as to who or what they were running from? Did Captain
Vinden give you any hints at all when he visited? He had to have
known it was murder once he heard your story.'