The Stars Blue Yonder (21 page)

“This is the first time we have a token ring that works outside the network,” Admiral Su said. “Commander Haines, your people are supposed to be the expert at Wondjina technology. The Roon are going to be in range in less than twenty-four hours. Make that ring work for us, so when those sons of bitches show up, we'll have something in our corner.”

“Token rings aren't weapons,” Jodenny said to Nam as the meeting broke up.

“They are now,” Nam said.

She joined Myell, who had gone to the podium to corral Commander Perry and was saying, “Tell me about the cones again, sir.”

Perry grabbed a pen and his SOEL. He drew what looked like an ice
cream cone, then drew a reverse cone below it. “Your window of travel. From the here-now going backward until your date of birth, forward until the day you die. You can only travel through time periods in which you're alive.”

“But I'm already dead,” Myell said. “Killed on top of Burringurrah and buried on Providence.”

Perry used his pen to scratch the side of his head. “Not from my perspective. From where I stand, you disappeared from Burringurrah with Commander Scott and Commander Nam. I don't know what happened to you after that, but clearly you're alive now.”

“He died and I buried him,” Jodenny insisted.

Myell squeezed her hand. “And I've seen the grave.”

Perry sighed. “I don't know. Maybe the gods did send you back as some kind of clone. Maybe time has been changed without you being aware of it. It's possible that this isn't your original timeline at all, just one that's a few inches off. Have you ever seen yourself die? Been there at the moment you fall?”

“No,” Myell said. “But I never visit anyplace where I could run into myself.”

Haines appeared at Jodenny's elbow. “We need you down in the docking bay, Chief.”

Myell gave Perry's drawing one last look, clearly unwilling to go. “If I leave here tomorrow, will you continue on in your timeline and remember my visit? Or will it all be wiped away?”

“I'd hope that I remember,” Perry said. “But you would never be able to confirm it.”

Haines, clearly impatient, said, “Chief Myell, we need to go.”

Cappaletto and Ovadia had made their way through the crowd down to the podium and had overheard Haines. Cappaletto said, “We'll take him down, Commander. Grab some coffee in the chief's mess on the way down. Can't be a chief on this ship and never stop by the goat locker.”

Haines looked exasperated.

Jodenny said, “Only if I can get some coffee, too.”

“Absolutely,” Cappaletto said.

Haines said, “They need him now.”

Ovadia folded his arms over his chest. His muscles bulged under his short-sleeved khaki shirt. “We'll only be a few minutes, sir.”

Nam called Haines over. Haines went reluctantly. As soon as he was gone, Cappaletto said, “Let's go.”

The two chiefs headed for the hatch. Jodenny touched Myell's arm, urging him to follow. They'd only gone a few steps when Perry said, “Chief Myell.”

“Yes?”

“We don't know our unconscious minds,” Perry said. “But surely it's no coincidence that you keep following Commander Scott in time. Why every jump directs the ouroboros to her.”

“Until this one,” Jodenny pointed out.

Perry glanced back down at his icecream cone drawing.

In the passage outside the briefing room they ran into Adryn, who agreed to come with them down to the chiefs' mess on Deck 4. Cappaletto murmured something to Adryn that made her face furrow. They were barely off the lift before she pulled Jodenny aside.

“I need your advice,” she said. “Can we talk? I promise, I'll get you some coffee.”

Ovadia, Myell, and Cappaletto were still heading for the chiefs' mess. Jodenny looked longingly after the men. “Does it have to be now?”

“We don't exactly have a luxury of spare time,” Adryn said.

“I suppose not.”

Myell looked back, quizzical. Jodenny said, “We'll catch up.” She let Adryn steer her into a small snack lounge filled with vending machines. Adryn ordered up two cups of coffee and they settled on hard black benches.

“It's family stuff.” Adryn ran her finger along the rim of her cup. “About my dad, and where he is. I don't know if Uncle Terry wants to know it, or needs to know it, or if he'll just be distracted by it. You know, the divorce and all. Or have you already told him?”

Jodenny poured sugar into her coffee, twice as much as she'd used prior to the pregnancy. “Like you said, we haven't had a lot of spare time.”

“I don't want him to be caught off guard if he finds out,” Adryn said.

“Thank you. I appreciate that.” Jodenny sipped at the coffee but it was too hot, so she inhaled the aroma instead. “I saw Laura down in medical. She's upset about yesterday's mission.”

Adryn frowned. “What about it?” “That it was dangerous, and apparently you got assigned to it because you're family.”

“But that—” Adryn stopped herself from completing the sentence. “I never told her it was dangerous.”

“A ship this size, I bet it's hard to keep secrets.”

“I didn't get the job because I was anybody's niece,” Adryn said. “I volunteered for it.”

Jodenny tasted the coffee. She needed more sugar. “I think you should tell her.”

Adryn grimaced. “I think that'll get me into even more trouble. Did I tell you we've only been married six months?”

Jodenny raised her coffee cup in salutation. “Congratulations. It only gets harder, trust me. Now, why don't you tell me why we're really here?”

Adryn put on an innocent expression. “I don't know what you mean.”

“You and me, right here. Don't get me wrong. Family talk is important. But I suspect you were more interested in splitting Terry and I up than anything else. Is this a guy thing?”

A quick smile. “No,” Adryn said. “It's a chief thing. They wanted to talk to him in private.”

“Hmm,” Jodenny said, and drank the rest of her coffee.

The chiefs' mess was a large compartment filled with comfortable furniture, a table for eating and playing cards, large-screen entertainment devices, and vids of members past and present. It smelled like old sweat, dirty socks, and a whiff of forbidden tobacco. It was also crowded with chiefs, at least a dozen of them, men and women standing around in uniform as if attending a disciplinary hearing.

Myell figured he was in serious trouble the moment he walked in. Cappaletto and Ovadia effectively blocked any retreat, leaving him in front of the square-jawed beanpole shape of the
Confident
's master chief.

“Chief Myell, I'm Master Chief Halvert. You've been summoned on down here because I've been talking to Master Chief Talic, over on the
Melbourne
. He says he served with you at your last command. He claims you never went through a proper chief's initiation before you disappeared on your last mission, and that's a bit of a concern.”

A few of the chiefs nodded. Most were giving Myell a thorough lookover. He remembered Talic well, the son of a bitch.

Halvert's gaze was unforgiving. “We understand what he's talking about. Becoming a chief means more than just putting on a different uniform and making more money. We've got the same kind of tradition in our military, so I understand where he's coming from. You want the respect of the crew on this ship, you've got to have the respect of this chiefs' mess first. You understand what I'm saying?”

The broad American accent wasn't too hard to decipher, and Myell understood all the words. Jodenny, when she found out, was going to be pissed. But he was willing to stand his ground, at least on a minute-by-minute basis.

In as neutral a tone as he could manage, he replied, “Yes, Master Chief.”

“Well, then.” Halvert turned to Cappaletto. “You've got the charges there, Chief?”

“You bet.” Cappaletto reached into his pocket and pulled out a thin roll of paper. He unrolled it. “The Kangaroo Court of Neptune the Sea King is hereby called to order. To wit, to writ and to all ye present, defendant Teren Myell of the malarkey-filled Team Space is accused of the following. Number one, he saved the lives of his shipmates and colleagues on the TSS
Aral Sea
. Number two, he made the bastard Roon disappear from the entire planet Earth. Number three, any Team Space pissant whiner who wants to disrespect the Hero of Burringurrah isn't worth crossing the street to spit on even if he was on fire.”

“Who's got the anchor?” Cappaletto asked.

Ovadia pulled a box out of his pocket and handed them over.

“Go ahead, Tom,” Halvert said to Cappaletto.

The anchor was small and gold. Cappaletto pinned it onto Myell's right collar flap and gave him a solid whump on the upper arm.

“Congratulations, Chief,” he said. “You earned it.”

The rest of the chiefs came around to congratulate him as well, each with a nice punch to the arm, and Myell didn't mind the pain at all even though he'd have bruises come morning. Someone broke out champagne and there was a cake, too, bearing Myell's name and the logo of the ACF.

“Can't stay long,” Ovadia reminded everyone.

Master Chief Halvert said, “Don't be a worrywart, Noberto.”

Myell hated to leave his own party but he did have a job to do, so after fifteen minutes of coffee and cake he, Ovadia, and Cappaletto squeezed out the hatch. Jodenny and Adryn were waiting for them. Myell handed her a plate of cake.

“Where'd you get that?” she asked, noticing the anchor.

He kissed her. “Present from the chiefs' mess.”

They all went down to the ready room off the auxiliary deck. After several minutes of waiting around, one of Beranski's men came to get them. The blue ring was humming and turning slowly half a meter above the deck. Sensors, scanners, and force shield equipment surrounded it from every angle. Security guards stood on watch, armed and ready. Beranski looked like he hadn't slept at all.

“It's incredibly cool,” Beranski said. “They're going to shit themselves in jealousy back on Fortune.”

“If we ever get back to Fortune,” one of Beranski's aides said gloomily.

Jodenny was holding on to Myell's arm as if she feared he'd get too close to it and vanish. Myell patted her fingers. He had no intention of getting near the thing. Just looking at it made his skin itch.

“What now?” Myell asked. “Am I supposed to try controlling it with my mind?”

“Can you?” Beranski asked, intrigued.

“No,” Myell said.

“Would you tell me if you could?”

Myell raised an eyebrow.

Beranski spread his hands. “Admiral Su says you never wanted the responsibility of controlling the system. That you turned it down.”

“True enough,” Myell said. “But I'm not going to lie about it. If I could control it, I probably wouldn't be here in the first place.”

Denials and protestations aside, Myell spent the rest of the day with Beranski as the team ran tests and scans on the blue ouroboros. Again and again he answered questions he'd already answered—where he'd been, when, under what circumstances, how long each trip had lasted. Jodenny stayed close by, obviously bored, but every time he suggested she go back to their cabin and sleep, she gave him the evil eye.

Instead she amused herself by borrowing Chief Ovadia's SOEL and watching library vids about the Hero of Burringurrah, and the Roon invasion of Earth, and the Big Daddy Sphere, also known as the First Egg. Some of the vids were documentaries, and others pure fiction, and still others pure fiction done very badly with actors who looked nothing like Jodenny or Myell.

“Do you know how many things they've gotten wrong?” Jodenny asked.

Myell had come to her chair for a short break from the questions and tests. He put a hand on her belly to feel Junior and said, “How could I? I wasn't there.”

“I can guarantee you there were no spectacular explosions or beautiful native women on your trip across the outback.” She gave him a speculative look. “I don't understand why you're here. Not that I'm complaining. But you
died
.”

“Turned into a god,” Myell said.

She nodded.

He sat down on the small stool beside her. “Anna Gayle. She was there?”

Jodenny nodded.

“One of their prisoners?”

“Maybe at first,” she said, begrudgingly. “But not by the time I saw her. She was helping them.”

He scratched his chin. “Could be that she had no choice.”

“Everyone has choices,” Jodenny said. “Sam didn't help them. He was barely alive. Even when he got his physical health back, he couldn't talk, couldn't sit still, prowled the woods, woke up screaming at night—you've seen him.”

“I know,” Myell said. “You save him, though. Eventually. In the future that I've seen.”

She lifted her chin. “You've seen wrong, though. If there's any saving to be done, he'll do it himself. He's one of the strongest people I know.”

Captain McNaughton came by, though he mostly ignored Myell and Jodenny. He quizzed Beranski on their progress, inspected the ring from afar, and stalked off again. Admiral Nam had apparently shuttled back to the
Melbourne
but would be back in a few hours. Adryn had gone off duty and had said something about working out some misunderstanding with her wife. Myell, who was still marveling that Adryn wasn't a little kid anymore, hadn't realized she was married to another woman.

“Does that bother you?” Jodenny asked.

“Blows my mind,” he admitted. “Not the marriage thing. That she's even old enough to be in the military.”

“I wonder if the wedding announcement was in the news.” Sitting there in the middle of the hangar, Jodenny did a search and came up with a clipping from the news archive. She read it and frowned.