The Phoenix in Flight (45 page)

“Earning my keep, for the first time in my life.” He
laughed, as Osri turned away in bitter disgust.

o0o

A few hours later, Norton watched on his screen as the
Telvarna
lifted from the floor of the cavern under geeplane and slowly floated out
through the open lock. Five hundred meters from the cavern, its radiants
brightened and it arrowed away from the surface of Dis, shrinking to a bright
dot and disappearing within seconds.

Norton stared at the view from the imager as the lock door
began to close across the view of Warlock bulking ominously above the jagged
horizon. He was worried.

Why did she accept Lokri in Reth’s place?
A suicidal
run to the heart of Panarchist power was not the time to have to deal with a
troublesome crew member.
How much of Jakarr’s bid for power was fostered by
Lokri?

He shook his head. It didn’t matter now. Markham was gone.
He, and now Vi’ya, were the best captains he’d ever served with. Though he
hoped she’d keep an eye on Lokri.

A faint, sweet chime announced Reth Silverknife, the chimes
in her long braids ringing their soft harmony. “She’s changing back.”

“Not quite.” He sighed. “She’s changing... different. The
more time she spends with the Eya’a, the more training she gets with her
abilities, the further away from her own emotions she seems to get.” Norton
observed the sadness that Reth did not try to hide. “I’m sorry you’re not on
the
Telvarna
with Jaim.”

Reth made one of her stylized Serapisti gestures. “The flame
wanders where it will,” she said. “We will be together again in the fullness of
time. And I think Vi’ya has emotions. You remember what she was like when
Markham first found her. She learned to express them, but now she has gone back
to the way she was before, when they were hidden.”

In the viewscreen the lock slid closed. Reth went to the
console and reached past Norton to tap the keys. The view switched to a small
cove of rocks thrusting up from the surface of Dis, as if to protect the small,
circular space between them from the star-strewn sky beyond. The surface of one
of the rocks had been carefully smoothed. On it the orange light of Warlock
picked out a simple carving—a sprig with two leaves, and a blossom at the end.
The orange blossom of the L’Ranjas: carved in stone on the surface of a dead
world, it would still be there when humankind itself was a memory.

o0o

Marim finished showing the nicks around the
Telvarna
,
ending at the rec room as the ship came to life around them. She’d hoped that
they’d try some nick strut on her, but the Arkad didn’t say anything, just
looked around and back again as though his brains had fallen out of his skull.
Maybe he just had a nova-sized headache. Not a surprise after that crash
landing.

Schoolboy made up for the Arkad’s disappointing performance,
saying things like, “Where did you get this?” when they passed the mini-cim.
His tone was more like
Where did you steal this?
And at the galley, “Is
this clean?”

Montrose had popped his huge, grizzled head out and grinned
like a wiredream space pirate. “You shall see for yourself at the watch change,
my boy. I assure you, everything will be clean to your satisfaction... and
mine.”

Marim took in Schoolboy’s tilt-nosed stare and nearly
sprained her gut trying not to laugh. Did the nick really think he was going to
be inspecting? No, she wouldn’t ruin the surprise for the price of ten
glitterships.

Now the two just stood there in the empty rec room.

Marim sighed. “Look, we don’t have servants, so you get your
meals yourself. If you can’t figure out how to use the monneplat to make your
choices, I can teach you.” She poked her finger slowly in the air. “Even a nick
can press a tab, or am I wrong?”

“Thank you,” the Arkad said.

Schoolboy just scowled at the monneplat
as though it
contained torture instruments and poison.

Marim shrugged, and gave out her last bit of data. “Since
it’s just us, watches are informal. We work it out among ourselves, so the
bridge is always covered by one of us while in fiveskip, though we can slave
the con here. But you don’t know how to sync in, so I’m to tell you that you
have a full watch—eight hours—to get some downtime, then you get put to work.”

Schoolboy said stiffly, “Does that mean I am free to leave?”

Marim was going to invite him to take a stroll in skip, but
he was too boring to bother with, and anyway, he kept blinking and grimacing
like he, too, had a nova-sized headache. So she just shrugged, and he walked
off. She noted that he oriented himself fast, and she soon heard the quiet hiss
of the door to Paysud and Jakarr’s old cabin.

The Arkad was studying the monneplat with a frown of
concentration, like he’d just walked onto the bridge of a battlecruiser. Was he
really that stupid?

“Ah,” he said, flicking past the food offerings.

The display lit up a surprising array of liquor choices.
Huh. Lokri had handled supplies. There was enough drink here for the entire
base. What was going on in
his
pretty head? She’d worm it out—she always
did—but first, she watched in appreciation as the Arkad punched up not one, not
two, but four drinks. All of them potent enough to drop a Tulungan godzilla.

She stepped up close. The Arkad was much taller than she
was—Lokri’s height—but not as tall as Jaim. He smelled terrible, the stale,
sharp sweat that pours off you in battle. So Gundan hadn’t let the nicks near
the fresher. Figured. He was a mean little slime. Marim was glad Jaim hadn’t
asked to ship on
Sunflame
to stay with Reth. Jaim was a far better
engineer than Gundan anyway, and though this was supposed to be an easy run,
you never could trust the nicks, that’s what Lokri said.

All this ran through her head while the Arkad stared down at
his four drinks. What was he waiting for, servants to pop out of the bulkheads
and pour the stuff down his gullet? Did they pull down his pants when he had to
take a leak, too?

He shifted his weight, and grimaced. That was clear enough.
He was in that state after action when it hurts just to breathe. Drinking was
the worst thing when you hurt that much, but she wasn’t about to say anything
and spoil the show.

He shifted again, then piled all four drinks on a tray. As
he moved past her to a table she caught a whiff of something besides sweat, a
mellow winy smell, distinctive enough to cause her to gasp. The Locke! Vi’ya
had wasted some of Markham’s precious stash of Locke on these nicks? What a
travesty! But then Vi’ya had always had the weirdest sense of humor.

The Arkad sat at the nearest table, picked up a drink, and
took Marim by surprise when he lifted his glass to her. Then he drank it off in
three gulps, and squeezed his eyes shut. His breath whooshed out, but then he
picked up the second one.

At that moment she felt the ship transition to skip, so she
trotted to the bridge, where she found everyone except Vi’ya shutting down.
“Greywing, you report to Montrose, then take to your bunk,” said the captain.

“I’m fine,” Greywing muttered, but the sheen of sweat
stippling her bristly red hair belied that as she slouched through the hatch,
her brother Ivard casting a worried look behind before he shambled awkwardly
after her.

Vi’ya watched after, frowning.

“Surprised you brought her,” Marim said.

“She insisted on coming. Said she’s well. And I like having
our best scantech with us.” Vi’ya pressed her fingertips to her forehead, then
dropped her hands. “But the Eya’a are so loud in my head because of that sphere
the Schoolboy brought, I can’t hear if she’s lying or not.”

Marim said. “I smelled heavy burn when Greywing came to get
Ivard. When you put out the word for
Telvarna
crew.”

Vi’ya’s black eyes widened. “Burn?”

“Bad. I bet she’s wrapped herself with synth-skin and
swallowed half the med cabinet, because I don’t smell it now, but she’s
hurting.” Marim tapped her skull. “I’m surprised you heard nothing.”

“It would be the meds, damping her emotions.” Vi’ya nodded
slowly. “So this is why she wouldn’t face me. I thought she was just watching
over Ivard’s first status check and liftoff.”

“That, too.”

Vi’ya’s eyes narrowed, then she lifted her chin. “Montrose
will know what to do. He’s as good a surgeon as sho-Nguyen with burns and
repairs. I’ll send her to him when I see her next. Where are the nicks?”

“Schoolboy’s gone off to the rack. The Arkad is pouring
drink down his gullet so fast I think he’s gonna guzzle us dry by the time we
reach Nick World. Though Lokri loaded us up with enough liquor to start a bar.”

“He did, eh?” Vi’ya’s brows slanted at a wicked angle. But
as had become her habit, her expression smoothed right back to stone. “Take the
con for a while, will you? I need to see to the Eya’a. I haven’t heard them
like this since Augeus IV.” Vi’ya winced and touched her head again, then went
out.

Marim punched the comm to audio, then sat down at her own
console to run through her assigned status checks. Jaim was in engineering, as
she expected. Between the two of them they tracked down several more of the
low-priority glitches that were a fact of life in a 400-year old ship.

Marim slapped off her console as Vi’ya reappeared on the
bridge.

“Are they still rasty?” Marim asked. “They’re not going to
fry our brains or anything, are they?”

Vi’ya’s lips twitched. “They have gone into hibernation.
Your brains are safe for the moment.”

Marim snorted. “Did you look in on our nick?”

“No.”

“Well, I’m going to,” Marim said, rubbing her hands as she
scooted out the hatch.

The Arkad hadn’t moved, except to lift those glasses. The fourth,
the one with the darkest liquid, was nearly empty. The entire rec room smelled
like a portside hellhole. Marim flicked the air scrubber on, and regarded the
nick, who sat there, blinking slowly, his dark hair hanging on his forehead,
which had purpled all the way across where his helmet had whacked him during
that landing. Both sides of his jaw showed helmet hits as well. The fun had
gone out of watching him act like a blit.

“You’ve got a watch in six hours,” she said, edging up to
his table. “Maybe it’s time to rack up?”

“Mumble bluh,” he whispered, turning his head. Or was that
vlith?

He swayed, then caught himself against the table, blinking
rapidly.

“Right.” Marim ran out, and punched the door to hers and
Lokri’s cabin. He lounged on his bunk, watching something on a hand vid.

“The Arkad’s drunk himself vacuumskull,” she said. “Help me
get him into his bunk.”

“No,” Lokri said, without moving.

“Lokri. I can’t lift him, and he’s numb-lipped, I tell you.”

“I’m not touching him. Let him sleep there. Be good for
him.”

“Blunge-eater,” she muttered, and skipped down to
engineering, where she found Jaim going over the main fiveskip monitor panel
with Ivard. The red-haired boy looked up guiltily, like he always did. He gave
Marim the shillies.

“The Arkad is drunk,” she said. “I need help pouring him
into his bunk.”

Jaim shut down his console with a swipe. “Get Lokri—”

“He won’t. If you can take one side, I can manage the
other,” Marim said.

“I’ll help,” Ivard said.

Marim was about to tell him to shove off but Jaim swatted
him on the shoulder. “Let’s go.”

Marim followed along, hoping the Arkad would try to fight
them off. But he seemed to be asleep on his feet. They muscled his inert body
to the cabin, where Schoolboy muttered in protest. Marim ignored him and
flicked on the lights. She turned to Jaim. “Let’s get those clothes off.”

“Gundan,” Jaim muttered, untabbing the Arkad’s clothes.
“Whew!”

The nick’s only resistance was a vague pawing motion with
one hand. Marim watched his head roll back, his hair drifting in his face. Even
drunk, he sure was pretty to look at, she thought appreciatively as Ivard held
him against the bulkhead and Jaim efficiently stripped him down.

Marim pulled off the counterpane, then cast it over the
Arkad after Jaim laid him face down on the bunk.

Jaim hit the light switch before shutting it.

Marim retreated to catch some sleep, but she set her bunk
alarm so she was there six hours later when Vi’ya came herself to the nicks’
cabin to roust them out for work.

The captain rapped twice. The door slid open, and Schoolboy
stood there, annoyingly fresh, though he fingered the plain gray tunic that
Norton had ordered during the days he’d thought that a uniform of sorts would
bind together
Sunflame
’s crew better. Marim could have told Norton that
the only people who would wear uniforms were his old crew.

From the way the Schoolboy twitched his shoulders and
examined his cuffs, he seemed to think sleggishins were breeding inside the
fabric.

The Arkad sat up, blinking.

“Like our Rifter liquor, Arkad?” Vi’ya asked.

Marim gloated to herself, enjoying Vi’ya’s null-gee
understatement.

But the Arkad just sat there on his bunk, tangled in the
covers and looking totally confused. He also, Marim noted appreciatively, had a
very nice body underneath that rainbow display of bruises.

“Jaim’s waiting.” Vi’ya jerked her thumb over her shoulder.

From the corridor, Marim listened with stilled breath,
wondering how the Arkad would take orders. Would he ignore Vi’ya? Get angry? Or
maybe would he try to order Vi’ya around her own ship?

Marim very much wanted to see him try that.

But he didn’t do any of those things. He threw off the sheet
and got up, without caring that he was stark naked.

o0o

“
Gennation or not, they make those Arkads
very
well
,
”
Marim said eight hours later, as Lokri lounged against the
drink dispenser in the rec room. “I wonder if he knows it—he certainly didn’t
seem to care that Vi’ya was standing right there, and me right behind her
.
”