The Devil's Nebula (13 page)

Lania saw no reason not to be friendly. Ed seemed to have a grudge against everyone in any position of authority, but she would treat the pair as she would anyone else aboard the
Hawk
. To date she had found Gorley rather cold and remote, but the small Indian gentleman, Choudri, she rather liked.

She responded to the latter’s smile and told him about her first real shift at the controls of the
Hawk
.

“I’m pleased the ship satisfies your expectations, Ms Takiomar,” Choudri said.

“Call me Lania. I don’t like formality, especially aboard ship.”

Ed handed self-heating trays of food to Lania and Jed, and they sat around the table and ripped open their meals. “You’ll find Lania, although a fine pilot, is not exactly conventional,” Carew said.

“That,” Commander Gorley said, “is a charge that could be levelled at all three of you.”

Lania glanced at Ed. He sat back and gazed at the Commander, a slight smile playing over his thin lips. “Charged with being unconventional,” he said. “Now, that is a compliment.”

“It was, I assure you, not meant as one.”

“So you like convention?” Ed said.

Lania chewed on a mouthful of reconstituted egg, watching both men. This should be interesting. Ed was never happier than when arguing with someone whose viewpoint he despised.

“For the smooth running of a stable and equitable society, Captain Carew, then yes, the conventional, the norm, is what helps maintain a status quo. A well-balanced society cannot sustain mavericks and anarchists.”

“You think not?” Ed asked. “I would have thought that one of the necessary components of such a society, in order to counter-balance the force of repression represented by the likes of yourself, would be just such people, mavericks and anarchists. The Expansion is a big place, big enough for all forms of society – even radical societies, like those I would rather be a part of.”

Lania turned to look at the severe Expansion man.

“Thankfully for all of us,” he said, “You and your like do not hold the reins of power. It is a goal of our regime to spread homogeneity across the human diaspora.”

“Homogeneity? A bland, sanitised society peopled by drones, easily manipulated and controlled?”

“A society bedevilled no more by those of a criminal tendency, like you and your crew.”

Lania raised her coffee cup and smiled sweetly at Gorley. “And respects of the day to you, too.”

Ed smiled. He looked across at Gorley. “Is that why you mounted this mission, Commander, to bring the cultists under your control? Or to ensure that they do not return with their ideals, one day, to infect the Expansion?”

Gorley pursed his thin lips, staring at Ed. “I’ve explained the reason for this mission, Captain. I assure you the Expansion has nothing to fear from the cultists, especially that they might one day return to Human space with their crazy ideas in tow.”

Ed shrugged. “I hope they’ve managed to find a habitable world and start a free society.” He paused and then went on, “What I fear is what you and your henchmen are planning once we locate them.”

“I can assure you on that score, Captain Carew,” the Commander said. “You have nothing to fear.” He stood. “Now, if you will excuse me.” He nodded to all present and strode from the lounge.

Ed watched him go, a smile animating his usually placid features. Lania laughed. “I think you got to him, Captain.”

Choudri glanced up from his empty cup. He had been silent during the exchange, but now he said, “It would be a mistake, Captain, if you thought that Gorley and his like are representative of the political make-up of the Expansion.”

Lania looked up, surprised. Ed was evidently taken aback, too. He stared at Choudri. “Are you saying that he isn’t?”

Choudri shrugged. “Oh, he represents a certain reactionary viewpoint, but he is opposed by many in the ruling councils across the face of the Expansion. Myself included.”

“Really?” Ed said. “Can you tell me where you stand on, first of all, hauling us before a kangaroo court, finding us guilty of transgressing Vetch space, ordering our deaths and then letting us off if we agree to fly you through Vetch space? Do you comprehend the hypocrisy of the Expansion’s stance?”

Choudri smiled disarmingly. “I can only concur one hundred per cent with your analysis, Captain. Your error is in thinking that the decision to do this was a unanimous one. The Commander and his allies faced opposition on the matter, but they out-voted us. One of the reasons I volunteered to come along on the mission was to ensure that the old fashioned term... fair play... was adhered to.”

Lania looked at Ed, who nodded, taking his time to reply, then said, “Perhaps you can tell me the real reason for the mission? Because,” he said, leaning forward, “I don’t believe for one minute what Gorley told us about ensuring the survival of the colonists and mounting a scientific mission of exploration.”

Choudri was silent for a while, staring down as he turned his cup in his worn, brown fingers. He looked up at last and said, “The overt goal of the mission is just what the Commander told you, Captain.”

“And the covert?” Ed asked.

Choudri smiled. “Would you believe me if I told you that even I, as Deputy Director of External Operations, do not know the covert – the
real
, if you will – aim of the mission?”

Across the table, Jed gaped, like an astounded goldfish. Lania smiled and looked at Ed.

“So you are not taken in by Gorley’s claims?” Ed said.

The Indian shook his head. “Of course not, Captain.” He looked from Ed to Jed, and then to Lania. “But this must not go any further than this room, do you understand?”

Ed said, “I assumed that Gorley had the entire ship bugged?”

“He did, but I took the precaution of having this area debugged.”

Ed smiled. “I appreciate your candour, Director.”

“Merely because we find ourselves on opposite sides of the law,” the Indian murmured, “does not mean that we cannot see eye to eye on certain matters.” He pushed his cup to the centre of the table, preparing to taking his leave.

Ed said, “One more thing. You’ve been surprisingly frank so far, but I wonder if you can give me one further answer?”

Choudri hesitated. “That depends on the question.”

“It’s simple,” Ed said. “Why us? Why, among the hundreds, if not thousands, of other eligible crews, did you choose us?”

Choudri rose, his fingertips splayed across the table-top as he considered the question. “I told you back at the station that the reason was that you were the best. You were good, I admit that. But not the best. I was surprised, to say the least, when we did not employ one of our own navy teams.”

“So why?”

Choudri shook his head, looking genuinely mystified. “I don’t honestly know, Captain. The fact is that Commander Gorley and his cabal insisted that you crew the
Hawk
.”

He excused himself and hurried from the lounge.

Lania was the first to break the silence that settled after Choudri’s departure. “Well,” she said, “do you believe him?”

Ed was leaning back in his chair, stroking the line of his long jaw. He appeared not to have heard her question.

Jed said, “He’s an Expansion man. He’s spinning us a line. Playing us for fools.”

Ed said, “I’m not so sure about that, Jed. Why would he lie? What does he stand to gain by telling us what he’s told us? Gaining our trust, for reasons of his own, entrenching our opposition to Gorley – as if he really needs to work to do that! I honestly don’t know.”

“For what it’s worth,” Lania said, “I believe him. I’ve liked Choudri from the off. I think he’s genuine.”

Jed stared at her, incredulous. “You believe him? Are you insane? Can’t you see? He’s one of them. Against us.”

“Hey,” Ed said. “Calm down, Jed, okay?”

“Calm down? I don’t believe what you’re saying. The bastard’s a reactionary. You’re wrong to trust him a centimetre.”

Ed looked at both of them. “Perhaps we should give the Director the benefit of the doubt for the time being, hm? We probably won’t know where we properly stand until we see what gives at journey’s end.”

“Christ!” Jed spat.

Lania pushed aside her tray. She had finished the meal without realising she had done so. “Like I said, I trust the guy.” She stared across at Jed. “It’s good to know we have an ally aboard the
Hawk
, is how I look at it.”

The engineer made a disgusted sound, stood quickly and left the lounge.

Ed watched him go. “What’s eating him, suddenly?”

Lania shrugged. “Let him be, Ed. He’ll calm down.”

S
HE LEFT THE
lounge and took the dropchute down to her berth. She lay on her bunk for a while, feeling the vibration of the ship in her bones, but she was still energised from her time melded with the
Hawk
and couldn’t properly rest.

She remembered then that the ship had a small gym on a lower deck and decided that a quick work-out was what she needed. One of the disadvantages with the
Poet
, she thought, was the space restrictions: she’d been forced to exercise in her own cramped quarters, which hadn’t really been sufficient.

She stripped off her smartsuit, feeling it peel away from her nakedness like a shed skin. She was aware of being suddenly alone, denied instant access to limitless information. She flung the suit across the bed, pulled on a red jumpsuit, and stepped from her berth.

She took the dropchute to the lower deck and padded along the corridor to the gym. She was pleased to find that she had it to herself. She stood beneath the scanner and allowed the ship to program her a work-out regime to cover the next three days.

For the next hour she moved from machine to machine, starting with a slow jog and building up to a sprint, then moving on to weights and presses. It felt good to be exercising again, to have the endorphins racing through her system as she gradually increased her exertion and began to sweat.

Her thoughts strayed to past events, incidents with Carew and Jed – some funny, some dangerous – and then earlier, to her teens and childhood. She liked to think of Xaria, the beauty of her home planet, its glorious coastlines and mountains, but she could never dwell long on the geography of the world without coming up against the painful memories of her childhood. She had returned to Xaria in recent years in a bid to reclaim her past, and to a certain extent it had worked. But at times like these, when her body was active and her mind empty, painful thoughts flooded in to fill the vacuum.

She finished the last of the bench-presses and decided she’d done enough. She crossed to the shower, undressed and turned under the drumming heat of the jet, pushing old memories aside and thinking of Ed and his handling of the Expansion officials.

There had been a time, perhaps eight or nine years ago, when she’d thought that Ed might have been attracted to her. Events had proved her wrong, however; she had mistaken his concern for something more. She had been young – very young – and she wondered if his lack of interest was because of that and their age difference; he was, she admitted, old enough to be her father. She wondered if that was why she was attracted to him?

As far as she could tell, for as long as she’d been working for Ed aboard the
Poet
, he had never had a relationship – in the physical sense – with anyone on any of the many worlds they’d visited. It was as if he didn’t need intimacy. He had told her, once, that he preferred ideas to people... and that felt true, to her. He would talk all night about abstruse ideas and philosophies, but clam up the moment she tried to get him to talk about himself and his emotions.

She was distracted by a movement across the room.

One of the guards had entered the gym and was stripping off his armour. He was a tall guy with a crew-cut, and stood with his back to Lania. He pressed the command console on his chest; sections of the golden armour lifted away with a hum of servo-mechanisms. Lania watched, the lengthy process bringing back a slew of painful memories.

Only when the guard lifted off the chest armour and laid it aside did Lania see that she was mistaken. The guard was not a man, but a woman in her mid-thirties: tall, tanned, athletically built and well-muscled.

Lania stopped the shower and activated the drier, and the woman turned and gave her a big smile. Underneath the armour, she wore a sweat-soaked one-piece, which she proceeded to peel off.

Lania stepped from the cubicle and pulled on her jumpsuit. She peered at the woman’s armour, noting the insignia on the breast-plate. She smiled at her. “Based at Gerontious? You must have done your basic training on Macarthur’s Landfall?”

“Don’t remind me, girl. Three months of sweat, blood, more blood and a shitload of tears.”

Lania smiled, remembering her own sweat, blood and tears. “How long have you been with the militia?”

“Just a couple of years. I worked for ten years as a cop on Mallarme, Arcturus.” The woman wiped sweat from her face with her wadded one-piece and stepped into the shower. She turned under the jet to face Lania. “This is my second stint of active duty for the Expansion.”

Lania laughed. “Escorting a bunch of criminals on a suicide mission through Vetch space. Someone didn’t like you.”

The woman smiled. “I’m Alleghri, Gina Alleghri.”

“Lania Takiomar.”

Gina frowned. “From Xaria, right?”

Lania sat down on a bench and leaned back against the bulkhead, watching the woman soap her lithe, muscled body. She had lovely breasts, full and dark-nippled. “How do you know?”

“I’m interested in the diaspora. Xaria was settled by colonists from Oceania a few hundred years ago. I reckoned Takiomar was an Asian name. Hey-presto.”

“Quite the detective,” Lania said. “I thought you might have been given our files.”

Gina shook her head. “We were told very little. All hush-hush. Just that we were escorting a bunch of very dangerous crims through Vetch space.” The woman activated the drier and turned. “If you don’t mind me saying, you’re the strangest looking set of criminals I’ve ever seen.”