The Myriad: Tour of the Merrimack #1 (16 page)

“It wasn’t American imperialism actually,” said Farragut. “It was a Spanish-funded Genoese imperialism at the time.”

“There were probably Romans aboard,” Steele muttered. Meant it to be snide, but Augustus said serenely, “Did you know Christopher Columbus kept his log in Latin?”

Farragut covered his eyes. “Oh, for Jesus.”

When all the LEN guests had gone back through the flexible walkway to their spheroid ship, John Farragut opened his stiff, stand-up collar and flung down his napkin into a wet burgundy stain in the tablecloth. “Was that hideous or what?” Pulled out his cuff links.

“No vote for ‘or what,’ ” said Calli Carmel, taking the pins out of her hair.

“TR, where are our
guys?
”

Colonel Steele had already checked with the control room. His square, bulldog head moved slowly from side to side, grim. “Alpha Flight has not reported back. Drones haven’t picked up their IFF anywhere in the Myriad.”

The Swifts of Alpha Flight were long since out of air. Steele was already figuring who he had to compose letters to.

Dak Shepard had only a mom. This was going to kill her.

Tough, mean Carly Delgado had no one but the Corps to call family. Big loss, that little girl was. Could have used a dozen Carlys.

Twitch Fuentes. Steele never knew much about Twitch. Better find someone who spoke native Spanish to write that letter, because Twitch didn’t know too much English beyond lock and load, so Steele guessed his family didn’t know even that.

Hazard Sewell. Military family. They’d understand. Didn’t mean Steele knew what the hell to say.

“They’re not dead,” Farragut said.

“All data to the contrary?” said Augustus.

“I
know
they’re not dead,” said John Farragut.

“Primary process thinking.” Augustus dismissed his certainty. Little boys and madmen believed that merely thinking things made them so.

“We stay here until I find my guys. Echo Flight making any progress?”

“Still surveilling the Rea shuttle,” Steele reported. “The Rea shuttle is now moving at eighty percent c.”

Echo Flight was following a snail.

“And at that rate they’ll arrive at Rea in . . . ?” Farragut left the blank to be filled.

“Thirty-four years,” Augustus supplied. “Your years.”

Farragut’s blue eyes roamed the overhead. A muscle bulged on his jaw with the clenching of his teeth, silent obscenities trapped within. “Something’s gotta happen.”

“Given that Myriadian ships don’t carry thirty-four years’ worth of air and food, yes, something must. Buy you a drink, John Farragut?”

“Oh, God, yes.”

Though wine aplenty had graced the captain’s table, John Farragut had stayed keen and painfully sober, drinking only at toasts.

“ ‘Have we not the utmost loathing for violence? The utmost?’ ” Farragut repeated his favorite quote of the evening. “I need something to wash this down.”

Colonel Steele returned to the control room as Farragut marched down the narrow corridor, followed by Augustus, and unlocked the bar, and quickly made up for lost time. He pulled a tequila from the rack. Held it up, swishing the worm around the bottom of the bottle. “For Faustino Is-this-okay-to-eat Barron? And how about Madame Save-the-Gorgons Navarro with the strawberry-green lip tint. What was
that
about?”

“Must be an Earth fashion. It’s not Roman.” Augustus pulled down a shot glass and slid it over for a hit.

Farragut wagged his head as he poured. “I know I’ve been away for a while, but now I’m afraid to go home.”

“What did you make of the twins?” Augustus coiled onto a barstool.

“What twins? I didn’t see—oh. Her. The blonde.”

“She had hair?” said Augustus—and caught a muffin mid-stern. He swiveled his barstool around, hailed his assailant in the hatchway. “Ah.
Miss
Carmel.”

She’d brought muffins.

Farragut lifted the bottle in toast to Calli. “My sexless XO!”

“Oh, shut up.” Calli pulled up a barstool and rapped down a shot glass, open end up. “The LEN stalking horse was asking for you, O Captain, My Captain.”

“The LEN what?”

“The twins.”

“Oh, for Jesus.”

Command made John Farragut the most attractive man on board. He would have been attractive had he a toad face, which he didn’t. But command also made him inaccessible. Subordinates were off limits to an officer, and every man jack and jane on board
Merrimack
was John Farragut’s subordinate.

Water water everywhere, but no one to sleep with. The LEN had set a glass of fresh water in front of the very thirsty.

“The sentry reported she was trying to convince him to let her into your quarters,” said Calli.

Farragut shrugged, wondered why he was even being told this. “So, why’d he have to check with you? Did he need help staving her off?”

“He got rid of her all by himself. He was just making sure he’d done the right thing.” The sentry had done it by the book. And to the captain’s lack of comment, Calli said, “Well?”

“Well what?”

“Did he?”

“Calli!”

She shrugged. “Just checking.”

Parched, he might be, but John Farragut would not be herded. Would not be led by his dick. He was feeling singularly trapped, and his kind did not mate in captivity. Preferred to stay with Calli and Augustus at the bar.

And soon the three of them set to addressing their empties by the names of the LEN emissaries, propping the shot glasses up, and knocking them over with muffins at ten paces.

The clearing of a baritone throat broke up the shoot. All three turned.

Ambassador Aghani stood, a rigid dark pillar in the hatchway.

The captain and the XO froze like puppies caught chewing the carpet, muffins burning like guilty brands in their hands. Augustus juggled his, unrepentant.

Aghani let the senior commanders stew in their juvenile poses for a long moment, then pronounced gravely, “I came to apologize for our behavior at your table, Captain. But I see the sentiment would be pearls before an unsuitable audience.”

Farragut drew himself up. “What can I say to something like that?”

“ ‘Pass the muffins,’ ” Calli suggested.

Aghani pronounced soberly, “Sir, I demand, by the authority of the League of Earth Nations and the treaties to which we are bound, that your vessel depart Myriadian space without further delay.”

“No, sir,” said Captain Farragut. The very last answer Aghani expected.

Aghani knew Farragut to be impulsive, belligerent, stubborn, but never insubordinate. Aghani put the situation into words the naval officer might understand, “Given that I am the lawful authority here, what you just said is tantamount to mutiny.”

“Oh, bullshit, sir.” Farragut slung his muffin aside, brushed off his hands. “When you were my guest, I couldn’t speak to you the way I wanted, but you are aboard now without my permission. I have a flight away and there’s no authority in the universe can make me abandon them. Simple disobedience to an illegal order can never be judged mutiny. We stay. Now get off my boat.”

Deep wrathful breaths sounded loud through Aghani’s wide nostrils. His lips worked. He restarted in the voice of forced conciliation. “Very well. Stay. You will strike your colors and accept the LEN flag.”

“No, sir.”

“This
is
mutiny now.”

“No, it’s not. I’m pretty sure I have to take an oath of loyalty before I can violate it.”

“Law requires you accept the LEN flag while you operate in LEN jurisdiction.”

Had him there. Farragut replied, “Make me.”

Aghani blinked. Calli made a noise in her throat. Augustus shook with silent laughter.

“I beg your pardon?” Aghani tilted one ear forward. Could not possibly have heard that aright.

“I don’t accept your flag. I’m not leaving. You’re going to have to shoot us.”

Aghani stared, airless.

“No, wait,” Farragut revised. “Y’all have no guns. You guys open a dialogue. Send over your negotiation team. Y’all are so good at peaceful resolutions. And there you are.”

Aghani could not speak. He turned, stiffly, mortified, to go. Felt something soft strike him between the shoulder blades, heard it plop softly to the deck.

Did not turn to see who threw it. Walked woodenly away.

Farragut pressed his lips together, nodded. “You know, I might have handled that better.”

“That sound you don’t hear is John Farragut’s career plunging down in flames,” said Augustus.

“Oh, and thanks for the help!” Farragut bent down and retrieved Augustus’ muffin. Gave it back to him. “Nice shot, by the way.”

“Plead the fifth,” said Calli.

“You know you can’t plead the fifth in a court-martial,” Farragut scolded.

“Not that fifth. This fifth.” Clanked an empty bottle on the bar. “Or this one. Or this—”

“Oh,
that’s
going to make it all right!” Farragut propped himself up between a barstool and the bar.

Calli’s hand beeped softly. She took a report from the officer of the deck: a salvo of courier rockets had just been launched from the LEN. Direction of Earth.

Farragut blew out a breath through narrowed lips. “I gotta be gone before the Presidential order gets here, or Calli, you got yourself a big boat.”

“Don’t want it,” said his second-in-command.

“Bull.” Farragut knew her better.

“Not like that,” said Calli.

“Jesus Christ, where is my flight?” Farragut stared emptily down at the bar, unfocused. “
‘Make me?’
I told a LEN ambassador ‘Make me?’ ”

“John, you’re drunk.”

“Crapulent. Isn’t that a fine Latin word for you.”

Augustus, who had been matching him drink for drink, managed a perfect vertical on his brief sortie from the bar to unload several rounds.

“You seem to have yourself a Roman,” Calli commented in Augustus’ absence.

“I noticed.” Farragut squinted. “How’d I do that?”

“You’re the finest commander I have ever served, John Farragut. For him being a patterner, it took him long enough to figure that out.” She clapped him on his broad shoulder on rising. “I’m boiled. Good night. Good morning. Good something. Outta here.”

Augustus oozed back onto his barstool in time to catch Calli’s long-legged retreat. A lot of motion in her walk. She let her waist-length hair fall free in its chestnut glory. “And
that
is not a bad piece of work.”

Farragut turned to regard him in surprise. “Rumor said you were alternating current.”

“I’m AC, I’m not
dead.
”

Calli had the kind of looks that dismantled men’s knees, emptied their brains, their bank accounts, and yes, it was absurd as hell to call her “Mr.” Carmel.

“You and she?” Augustus asked.

“She’s my XO!” Farragut cried, in the same tone he might say, “She’s my sister!” Then, “And as odd as it is to say, she’s not my type.”

Augustus propped a fist under one sharp cheekbone, amused. “And what is Captain Farragut’s ‘type?’ ”

“Maryann.” Almost a song how he said it. Blue eyes alight and far away, with a smile of memory. “The girl I left behind.”

“Your ex-wife’s name is Laura.” A prompt, that. John would know whom he’d married.

“Maryann is who I should have married.”

“And you didn’t. Why?”

“One of those moments when I let my common sense get the better of me. Talked my heart out of something unwise. Doesn’t work for me. Unwise was the way to go.”

“What made it seem wise to let her go?”

“I knew I wouldn’t be there for her. She was fragile. Gentle. Victorian hearts and flowers and butterflies, four children and a rose garden kind of woman. I married someone who could get along without me. Sure didn’t mean for her to get along quite so damned well.” He peered deep into his glass to see what made him say all that. To Augustus of all people. “Who knew the war would go on so long? And now it’s the Hive instead of y’all.”

“And that is unfortunate.”

Farragut’s brows lifted. “Unfortunate for us not to be fighting each other?”

“I am a soldier, not an exterminator. It is my duty to defend Palatine against the Hive, but there is no glory in it. What warrior does not long to prove himself against a worthy adversary? Who is Achilles without Hector? You are only as strong as your fiercest foe. And tell me truly, John Farragut, in your unwise heart of hearts, wouldn’t you really like to hurl a broadside into a Roman boat? Mine in particular?”

John Farragut seemed to meditate into his glass. At last he lifted liquid-blue eyes to the Roman. “Love to.”

Steele waylaid Augustus in the middle decks corridor. Tautly suggested he consider spelling Echo Flight from its tedious, trudging sortie, ghosting the slow-moving Arran vessel.

The suggestion amused the Roman. “Now that would require sending another flight. You’re offering to put a second flight under my command, Lieutenant Colonel?”

“I’m trading you . . . since you haven’t lost the first one. My dogs are tired. So are you human or what?”

Augustus did not answer the question, but allowed Steele to summon a relief.

Delta Flight had just reported to the flight deck when the call came in.

“
Merrimack. Merrimack. Merrimack
. This is Echo Two. Echo Leader has vanished! Repeat, Echo Leader has vanished!”

8

F
URNITURE NEVER DID MUCH to alter John Farragut’s progress. If sitting at a table, he wanted to get to the hatch beyond it, he was not one for sliding the chair back, standing, and walking around the table. That was not his way. Unless there was food on it, the table was in play as much as the deck. And as for the chair, there was no sliding. He just stood up, and the chair was on its own, and John Farragut was up and over the table, sometimes stepping on it, or, as now, vaulting over it, if he had side clearance, and he was out the hatch before anyone else.

He charged into the control room, reeking a bit, jacketless. He leaned over the com, paused over the speaker to ask the technician, “Who have I got here?”

“Echo Two. Flight Sergeant Khamis, sir,” the tech supplied.

Farragut flicked on the com. “Abdullah! This is Captain Farragut. Talk to me, son.”

Halting, his voice pitched too high, too loud, the Marine pilot Abdullah Khamis reported, “Sir! We are—” Abdullah paused, checking. “—eight light-hours outside the Arran system. Echo Flight was maintaining stealthy pursuit of the target at velocity of eighty percent c, trailing at a distance of five hundred klicks.”

The “target” had been the Arran shuttle with the unlikely destination of Rea.

“Target slowed to submach speed, made some course adjustments as if lining up an approach to something, and then—and then the target vanished. Like down a rabbit hole. Gone. Echo Leader ordered us to hold position. He followed the target’s path, matched it move for move, speed for speed, proceeded to the target’s vanishing point and—vanished. We tried to reestablish communication, but, Captain Farragut, he’s
gone.
We tried everything except res. No answer. Can’t see him, can’t hear him. He is absolutely
not there.
We lost him.”

“
I
got him!” The tac monitor on the other side of the control room reported, quite astonished. He stared at his readouts. Verified, with a startled smile, “I got him!” He flipped on another speaker, from which sounded the voice of Echo Leader.

“
Merrimack. Merrimack. Merrimack.
Echo Leader requests permission to dock.”

The tac monitor, anticipating the captain’s question, checked his console and reported, “IFF confirmed. It’s Echo Leader. He’s coming in hot on a direct line from the planet Rea!”

Farragut barked into the com. “Echo Leader. Permission granted. Bag your ass to debriefing, now.”

“Aye, aye,
sir!
”

Farragut reached over the com tech’s shoulder, switched on the other channel and ordered, “Echo Flight, return to
Merrimack
. Farragut out.” He turned from the com. “Hamster, have Mo meet me in debriefing.”

“You think Echo Leader is hurt, sir?”

“Not for Echo Leader, for
me.
I need more brain cells for this than I got switched on right now.

John Farragut appeared in the wardroom, in a fresh shirt and clean jacket. Squinted from a banging hangover. Wanted an oxygen mask, but pure oxygen at five atmospheres was toxic, so he suffered.

Echo Leader, Pilot Officer Jan Karowicz, sat, breathing hard as if he had run the forty-three light-years from Rea on foot. Slender, lank, scruffy. Smelled bad. His short, blond hair appeared licked five different directions by a mad cow. The beard was unkempt and not regulation. The captain could not recall ever seeing a bearded Marine.

But that was Steele’s problem. Farragut said nothing of it.

Young Jan Karowicz held a glass of water in a quaking hand. Pale. Might have been hungover, but that alcohol smell was all from Farragut. This boy merely stank.

Colonel Steele’s eyes rounded on seeing his Marine, evidently finding something shocking in the boy’s appearance.

One of the medical department’s dogs, a soulful-eyed Golden, laid its silky head sympathetically on Karowicz’s knee.

Farragut was ready to begin. “Where’s Augustus?”

“Plugged into Echo Leader’s flight recorder.”

Farragut nodded. “Okay. Pilot Officer Karowicz—Jan—let’s have it in your words. What happened out there?”

Karowicz trembled quite a lot. His report matched Echo Two’s account exactly up to the point where Echo Leader had vanished. In Karowicz’s version, everything
else
vanished.

“And you displaced to Rea,” Steele filled in.

“
Displaced?
” A hard laugh. Karowicz wagged his head. “
No,
sir.”

“You
did
end up in the Rean system,” said Steele.

“Well, yes, sir. Eventually.” The pilot officer poured himself another glass of water from the pitcher on the table.

Eventually.
The word lifted brows all round the chamber.

Eventually, Farragut asked, “Pilot Officer? Just how long do you estimate your journey took?”

“Fifty-four hours, thirty-two minutes. Give or take.” The Marine gulped his water. “Sir.”

Farragut looked to the maintenance rate, who confirmed, “His Swift’s chron confirms that, Captain. He’s
real
low on air.”

“No shit. Sorry, sirs.” Echo Leader’s glass rattled against the table as he set it down. He became aware of the consternation around him, having nothing to do with his word choice. He patted the dog at his knee for moral support, and asked guardedly. “How—may I ask, sir—how long do you think I was gone?”

Tight-lipped, bug-eyed glances surrounded him.

Farragut answered faintly—eventually—“Not long.”

Steele made the Marine describe his journey. Karowicz could scarcely call it a journey. Motionless. Directionless. No stars, no referents, no communication. Nothingness for fifty-four hours and thirty-two minutes, after which he emerged as abruptly as he’d gone in, nearly ass-ending the Arran shuttle, which magically reappeared before him, but now in Rean space.

“I have no idea how I got there, or where I was in between.”

“He was in a
kzachin,
” said Augustus, ducking through the hatchway.

Farragut turned full around in his chair. “Translation, Augustus?”

The captain would have known without being told that Augustus had been plugged into something. The tall Roman looked cadaverous. Eyes hollow, cheeks sunken. The IO answered: “A
kzachin
is a hollow of sorts. Something empty into which one falls. But I like ‘bridge’ better now. Starbridge. Stargate. Pick one. Wormhole. I don’t like that one.”

“No? What’s wrong with ‘wormhole?’ ”

“Sending a mass through a wormhole collapses the wormhole.”

“The Arrans are reusing their wormholes,” said Farragut. “So what’s holding them open?”

“Worms. Hell, I don’t know.” Augustus squeezed his eyes.

The interrogation soon ended with Farragut sending the bedraggled pilot officer to sick bay, the dog in gentle escort.

The captain conferred alone with his IO. “Why couldn’t you translate
kzachin
before?”

“I did. Try to translate ‘rabbit hole’ into Myriadian. Oh, they’ll understand the words reasonably well—a hole for an animal. But they won’t know it’s what Alice fell down to get to Wonderland.”

“How are the Myriadians seeing these
kzachin
when we can’t?”

“Actually, we can.” Augustus produced a global projector from his pocket, and activated the imager, transforming the wardroom into a starfield on all sides.

“This is the Myriad.” Farragut recognized the dense cluster all round him. “Where are the
kzachin
?”

“We’ve been detecting them all along. But when you’re dealing with a ship’s sensors, what goes onto your screen is a computer program’s interpretation of the data, not the raw data itself. The ship’s computer misinterpreted the data.”

“What’s the computer been doing to the data?”

“The raw input from a
kzachin
mimics certain aspects of a distant black hole. So the program filters pigeonholed the data into that known slot without regard for the extraneous, nonconforming data, and said: It’s a black hole. A
kzachin
registers no distance, so the filters interpreted that to mean ‘immeasurably distant,’ as in ‘too far away to clutter up the tactical display with.’ And another thing—
kzachin
are two-dimensional. Look at them sideways, they aren’t there at all. Could also be why the filters tossed the data. But now that we can recognize the data for what they are, we can plot the locations of the
kzachin
. They’re transparent to the human eye, so I’ve ascribed to them the image of a colored light.”

“Show me.”

“Hope you like international orange.” Augustus activated the locator program on his projector. The Myriad broke out in garish orange dots.

John Farragut turned full circle, looked up, looked down. “Lordy.”

The cluster was riddled with
kzachin
. “Where do they all lead?”

“We know definitely that two of them connect. This one, eight hours outside of the Arran system, leads to this one, forty-three light years away, in the Rean system.”

“Does it lead back the other way?”

A slight shrug. Augustus didn’t know. He did say, “There
is
a Janus element to the word
kzachin
.”

“A what?”

“Janus, the god of gates, for gates have two faces. There is an implication of duality within the word
kzachin
. A coming and going. Cross-referencing spaceport flight schedules for Arra, Rea, and Centro ought to fill in some more connections, but I have no interest in doing that.”

Farragut nodded. “Right now I just want to know where
that
one goes.” His forefinger found the orange blot in the vicinity of Alpha Flight’s last known location. “This is what the minefield that killed Cowboy was guarding. This
kzachin
.”

“Probable. But the question then follows: was the minefield guarding against a coming or a going?”

Farragut did not like the possibilities that sprang to mind. The unknown beyond the gate.

“I wouldn’t send anything after them except a drone,” Augustus went on. “And if you do, be advised, it will not be able to transmit any data back to you until and
if
it finds its way out again. And there’s one more thing. The
traveler’s
time distortion is not the alarming part of this.”

“I know,” said Farragut. “Ours is. I did the math.”

Immediately after Echo Flight reported Echo Leader’s disappearance from Arran space, Echo Leader was announcing his return to Arran space after a fourteen-hour flight from Rea.

Augustus summed it up: “Echo Leader got to Rea fourteen hours before he left Arran space.”

“Oh, well this
is
unacceptable behavior in a wormhole. Hell, Augustus, maybe the wormholes
are
all shut and we just don’t know it yet.”

“Maybe they are.”

Farragut scowled. “I meant that as a joke.”

“I didn’t.”

The captain turned a troubled gaze to the glowing orange points on the star field. “Space and time are two sides of the same coin. Mass bends space. Why are the bends so severe here? The Myriad is dense, but is it dense enough for this?”

Augustus rubbed his haggard face, shook his head, spoke into his hands, “No.”

“The Myriadians don’t have FTL capability, so they can’t know of the time distortion. And they can’t fly fast enough without the
kzachin
to see themselves return before they’ve left. But we can. Do you know what this means?”

“Yes. It’s a disappointing waste of a seismic migraine.” Plugging into patterner mode cost Augustus dearly. “I thought I was going to report to the emperor the discovery of quick, easy travel over vast distances. What I’ve got instead are fixed-point aberrant wormholes. All the termini are confined to this glob of stars somewhere off the Hive highway,
which,
by the way, we’ve managed to misplace.”

That wasn’t the implication Farragut meant, but it raised yet another question, surprising and disturbing. “
All
the termini?” said Farragut, unable to believe such an extraordinary phenomenon could be unique to this globular cluster. “Are there no
kzachin
outside the Myriad?”

“Haven’t detected any.” Augustus rubbed his haggard face. Spoke through his hands, “Though we know there is at least one more.”

“Origin,” said Farragut, feeling cold.

“There is a
kzachin
at Origin,” Augustus confirmed. “Your Alpha Flight could have fallen down a very long, furry rabbit hole.”

“Do we have any idea yet where Origin is?”

“We know where it is not.”

“Where isn’t it?”

“The Milky Way.”

“Good God Almighty. Are you serious? Doesn’t Kerry Blue’s recording of Origin’s night sky line up to
any
where we can identify?”

“Kerry’s star map doesn’t line up at all.”

“Well, then, is her map necessarily accurate? Maybe it’s just a bunch of pretty lights Donner gave to Kerry, and it doesn’t indicate anything.”

“No. Donner gave Kerry a very fine recording. Fine enough to pull the spectra off the stars and do some distance /brightness calculations. Distance to the recorder, of course. Even if some of the readings are contaminated—and they are—the relative brightnesses and distances are good enough to draw a rough map.”

“So what’s to say Origin is not on the far side of the galactic hub? Our maps of the far side are suspect.”

“Because Kerry’s recording was not made inside a spiral galaxy.”

Farragut stared at the stars dotting his feet, absorbing that one. Glanced up. “You’re sure?”

Met certain silence.

Farragut exhaled. “That’s a long, furry rabbit hole, Alice.”

“Donner’s sky exists inside an irregular galaxy,” Augustus told him. “Matter rich, metal poor, full of hot, bright stars. Very young. Very active. Very far from here.”

“One of the Magellenic Clouds?” Farragut suggested, trying to keep it in the neighborhood.

“Not sure. What we see of the Magellenic Clouds is one hundred seventy thousand years old, so our information on that place is a little stale. There are no less than two supernovae in Origin’s sky, but supernovae are so short-lived, there’s no matching them up at this distance. The Large Magellenic Cloud shows the beginnings of barred spiral arms and there’s no hint of that in what I have to work with, so I’m inclined to dismiss the Large Cloud as a possibility. As to the Small Cloud, it’s like trying to recognize a man from his baby picture.”