The Bright Black Sea (49 page)

I shrugged. 'I can't argue that. Hopefully with
finding her own way comes wisdom as well. Still, I wanted to at
least prepare you, should she find her way to you.'

'I appreciate that, Wil, but you needn't worry. If
she should discover my shadow in the log, well, she'd have to find
me if she wanted to learn more. And I'm hard to actually find, and
even if she did, she'd learn no more about the Four Shipmates than
you have. Still, I'd rather not have to avoid Tallith, so I'd
appreciate it if you and Rafe kept this to yourselves. I'll stay in
the shadows as I've always done,' he said, adding with a faint
smile, 'I'm more of a shadow than anything else.'

I decided there was nothing to be gained by pressing
him. I suppose I might've tried harder, but it's hard to pin
something down with someone as evasive as Dyn. He's simply too nice
to treat harshly and too closed up to get anything out of him
without sounding harsh. On the other hand, knowing that he knows
the secret, I had to believe that he'd steer us clear of danger
should we find ourselves too close to the uncharted reefs of this
secret conflict. And that was a comfort.

The days have slipped by with hardly a mark. The
drones went to pieces and back together again shiny and new – the
engineering workshop fabricating and replicating new parts for the
drones while Rafe, Kie and Lili fabricated advanced sensor chips
and control modules for them. And for the less mechanically
inclined, we've refurbished several cabins and helped Dyn re-plumb
some water and sanitary lines between the hulls as well.

Min never said anything more about the true log nor a
fifth shipmate, and as far as I know, has yet to further explored
either the qi or the fabric of what the Shipmates left behind. I'm
certain she hasn't abandoned her plans, but seems to be taking a
more relaxed and thoughtful approach to her search. Not that she
has any choice at the moment. Zilantre will be the first test of
what her future plans look like. I've no idea what they are.

Our relationship is cordial, but there are limits,
likely for the best. We mostly talk ship business when alone,
though with others, we can talk more about ourselves and our lives.
I think the gang's come around to accepting that we're merely
shipmates and partners in the operation of the ship. They had to
see, on reflection, that we'd be fools to be lovers even if it were
a possibility – as lovers, I'd look to be some sort of a knave and
she, a fool. She was no fool.

We're fast approaching the Anjur Passage, a little
more than half way to Zilantre. The passage is a thin section of
the Helgot Drift, a vast shell of dust and asteroid reefs that half
encircles the massive Ninth Star. Over the last 20,000 years, the
passage has been cleared of all of the known large asteroids and
meteors by the Patrol Navigation Section, allowing ships to
traverse the drift at interstellar speeds.

Gas and dust are found everywhere in the Nine Star
Nebula and the drifts are merely heavier concentrations laced with
reefs – thick clusters of planet to fist sized rocks – and streams
of rocks and thick clouds of dust. At low interplanetary speeds,
the rocks and dust present a fairly minimal danger to navigation,
especially if you've a chart. But at interstellar speeds, which
greatly compresses distances and makes mostly empty space a whole
lot more dense, a ship, unless it has several far ranging drones
ahead of it, runs the risk of finding itself unable to avoid a
meteor stream and must chance running through it and risk striking
a rock that can't be dodged or destroyed by the shipboard
anti-meteor missiles. Without the Anjur Passage, we'd have to
decelerate and pick our way through the drift, and accelerate again
on the far side, using far more fuel and making the voyage
significantly longer.

Because it's a fixed point of navigation between
Azminn and Aticor, we're now encountering Azminn bound ships within
radio range every couple of days. This evening I was sitting with
most of the off duty and awake crew members listening to Illy, Lilm
and Myes playing their strings and wind instruments with Riv
occasionally singing rather risque choruses, when I got a call on
my com link. It was from Molaye on watch.

'We've got first contact with an approaching ship,'
she said. 'Not in com range yet, but will be shortly.'

'Thank you Molaye. You can make the
announcement.'

That announcement broke up the concert. Even with the
approach to Anjur, contact with other ships are rare and fleeting
and would be entirely absent on our Anjur to Zilantre run until we
neared Zilantre itself. The crew hurried to the various radio rooms
and I retired to my cabin where I called up the com panel on my
desktop.

I stared at the screen with a start when the ship's
ID code became readable, The
Crimson Star
of the TriStellar
Line bound for Sanre-tay. Last time I heard from my sister, she was
captain of the
Crimson Star
, though it was in an Aticor
planetary run at the time. The official, and the unofficial gossip
channels opened up as soon as radio signals reached us.

'Greetings
Lost Star
. Litang here, captain of
the
Crimson Star
. You wouldn't happen to be the
Lost
Star
of the Night Hawk Line by chance?' asked a voice and
static laced image from the official channel, which I recognized
even through the static of the connection as my sister, Celin
Litang. 'And is Wil Litang still onboard?'

'Aye, formerly of the Night Hawk Line. I'll connect
you to Captain Litang...' said Molaye before I cut in.

'I have it Molaye,' I said grabbing the channel and
switching it to a private connection. 'Celin, I can't believe we're
meeting like this. It's indeed, a small universe!'

'Well met, Willy! It is wonderful to see even your
fuzzy face this deep in the middle of nowhere, so far from your
usual orbit. And was I hearing right, did she just say Captain
Litang?' she exclaimed.

'Ah, yes she did. Captain Miccall died about a year
ago. But what are you doing here, big sister? Last I heard you'd
settled into a nice, steady Aticor planetary belt run.'

'Don't change the subject Willy. Tell me all, since
this link won't last half an hour and you've more of a tale to tell
than I have!' she exclaimed, adding, 'I'm going to need time to
realize my little brother has grown up to be a ship captain, and
decades ahead of the schedule you'd charted for me the last time we
crossed orbits...'

Celin is twelve years older than me and has been a
captain for almost two decades with the vast TriStellar line that
runs liners in and between the Azminn, Aticor and Apier systems.
She'd been mostly operating in the Aticor system for the last five
years. The last time we'd been able to get together was seven years
ago when her Azminn run ship was refitting and she was home on
leave when the
Lost Star
happened to call on Faelrain.

We tried to catch up with as much as our news as
possible in the short time we'd be able to punch through laser
communications due to our combined velocities and the ionized
shells about our ships. I gave her a brief account of my
appointment and our current situation and she updated me on hers –
she was bound for Sanre-tay for the same reason we were fleeing it
– the collapse of trade in the Azminn system. The
Crimson
Star
was a smaller ship than the usual TriStellar interstellar
liner on that run, part of the adjustments the shipping companies
were making due to the trade collapse. Our precious minutes flew by
and too soon the static was taking her away from me. Over this
static at the end, she promised to send a radio packet to Zilantre
for me with suggested agents and prospects of work in the Aticor
system. We wished each other fair orbits while we still had a
signal and talked until it faded away.

We entered the Anjur Passage five days ago, 87 days
out of Sanre-tay orbit. The twisting passage is marked by a string
of fifty-seven buoys. We needed to make frequent, subtle, but
timely alterations in our course throughout the passage using our
balancing rockets rather than the less powerful steering rockets.
Using the array of eight balancing rockets to make course
corrections is demanding and delicate work for both the pilot and
the lookout who has to locate and chart the position of each buoy
through the static and haze created by our passage through the dust
and gas of the drift. It took us five days to thread our way
through the Anjur narrows. There's always an element of danger in
space travel, and traversing the Anjur passage certainly upped that
danger level a notch or two, but it would be an exaggeration to
call it dangerous. It just felt like it to this poor captain...

We passed two more ships in the passage, the last
ships we'd likely come across until Zilantre, since we'd soon be
leaving the Azminn – Aticor space lane to sail directly to Zilantre
through the 40 au gap between the Helgot and Myzar Drifts. Still,
we were farther away from Sanre-tay than we were from Zilantre, and
after the timelessness of our passage to Anjur, we now began to
look ahead.

Today, after clearing the last buoy, we moved the
Ghost
from the boat deck to hold no. 2 in order to free
space on the boat deck for the three-drone davis the engineering
staff was building. The two new(er) ones are now ready to deploy,
and we may soon send all three ahead, just to get some experience
in managing two or three drones at once.

01

I awoke with a start. To silence. Which wasn't right.
I tried to get up and the hammock swung wildly. Free fall. That
wasn't right either. I swung my legs down and managed to snag my
slippers below the hammock and half flew, half stumbled for the
starboard door-panel of my sleeping cabin. It opened directly onto
the companionway, and grabbing the companionway's railing, I swung
myself around the short stretch to the bridge.

'What's wrong?' I asked Molaye and Illy, Molaye
perched over the engine room console.

'Emergency engine shutdown,' said Illy.

I touched my com link and called Lilm. 'What's up
Chief?

'Hot spot shutdown for the main engine, Skipper,'
Lilm answered laconically, adding. 'Not a false reading.'

'A breach?'

'Don't think so. Minor if any. Ten's having a look
and Riv's just flown by.'

'I'll be down.'

'Standard unpowered procedures,' I said to the watch
and swung out. Illy, at least, knew what had happened. I'd no need
to say more.

I stopped at my quarters to pull on old trousers and
a rugged jersey and headed for the main well where I met Myes
flying down the shaft. 'Hot spot?' he asked as I joined him.

'Main engine,' I said as we dived down the well. 'No
breach, apparently.'

We shot past the engineering deck to the platform in
the engine room. Myes swung off the platform and continued hand
over hand down the steep ladders into the depths. I hurried over to
the control platform to join Lilm who was leaning over the railing
staring down along the length of the main rocket engine.

'What happened?'

She shrugged without looking up. 'Just a warning and
an automatic shutdown. Don't know more than that. You'll have to
ask the boys down there.'

'You don't mind if I go down to take a look?' I
asked. As I've mentioned, the engineering staff does not encourage
tourism in their department. It's best to ask their permission just
to keep on their right side.

'Go ahead. I'm sure they're just standing around
looking serious. Too hot to do anything for a couple of hours.'

'Thanks,' I said, and headed for one of the spidery
stairs running along the engine frame for the light thirty yards
below. I saw Min arrive from the main access well and paused to
await on her arrival. I gave her the word as we dove downward,
pulling ourselves along using the ladder railings leading to the
depths of the engine room.

The gang was hidden behind the bulge of the
combustion chamber. I found Ten, Myes and Riv right at the bottom
of the engine casing where it met the stern bulwark standing about
in several directions as Lilm had predicted, looking at a very
discolored, semi-melted spot in the support patterns of the engine
casing, perhaps 30 centimeters in diameter. Min and I joined them.
Nobody said anything, so I decided I might as well ask.

'What are we looking at here, besides that dark spot
in the casing,' I added in an effort to forestall any sarcastic
replies.

'That's it, Skipper. A hot spot. A breach of the
inner liner. The hole allowed a jet of hyper-hot plasma to leak and
start melting the outer, D-Steel casing. More than that I can't say
until the engine cools enough to send a service bot out to have a
look at the rocket liner.'

'Can't be wear. We've decades of service left in this
unit, right?'

'Should have. Seeing that it's only two meters into
the nozzle, I'd say it's likely impact damage from some meteor that
must have hit it when the engine was cold and pitted it badly
enough that the plasma has now breached the inner liner,' said Riv,
and squatting down and pointing, added, 'If that's all it is, we
can deal with it in two watches, But here's what we're looking at –
see how the discolored scar looks asymmetrical... And if you look
closely, you can see some discoloring flaring out on either side?
Here and here. And it's hot too,' he added as he traced a long line
from the hot spot with his hand just above the surface. 'I won't
know for certain until I can get a service bot into the bell to
have a look, but I'm thinking the liner's fractured rather than
just holed.'