The Void (5 page)

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At that moment, Rebecca Kensington was standing in the crew's mess, looking out the only observation window on the entire ship other than the one on the bridge. It was totally unnecessary, as any ship's architect would tell you, and in fact, could be dangerous.

A window was a weak point, and the vacuum unforgiving. But Captain Gravely had insisted. Not unlike most captains. She said it was for ship morale, and the architect accepted the lie. The truth was, what was the point of going to space if you never saw anything? So while Jack Crawford puked his guts out three decks above her, Rebecca watched the Earth turn below.

She had always wanted to go to space, ever since she was a child. She would have made it, too. She certainly had the brain for it. She excelled at math and science. Tests were always easy for her, and invariably her scores were off the charts. But there was one test she had never mastered, one test she couldn’t study for.

The first time she failed the psych evaluation, she laughed. The second time, she cried. No one ever got a third chance. There was too much riding on it, too much chance of doing horrible, terrible things. To kill and to maim. Only the strongest minds could handle the dreams and even some of them cracked.

She could have joined the Merchant Marine. The transport ships that went back and forth across the system and beyond had standards that were lower, and the cargo ferries that never left solar orbit were even less demanding. But that wasn't for her. It was to be the Navy or nothing.

So when her dream died, she found others and into them she poured her spirit and her soul and everything she had. But always, the regret. Still, she was here now and even though it scared her a little, staring out through her own reflection over that great, blue sphere . . . it was a dream come true.

And yet, something was off about this dream.

She felt it creep over her, a feeling that she was not alone. That she was being watched. She had felt it before but now it was palpable. So when she turned and found a man standing behind her, she shouldn't have been surprised. It didn't stop her from issuing the smallest of startled yelps.

He had been watching her for several minutes. She was the one who concerned him the most.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” he said, raising his arms to show he meant no harm. “I felt I was going to startle you but I couldn't think of any way to let you know I was here without doing it.”

“That's alright,” she said. It wasn't a lie, not like it normally would be. There was something soothing in the way he spoke.

“I'm Dr. Ridley,” he said, taking her hand. “Ship's physician.”

“That explained it,” she thought.

“You mean shrink.”

There was a moment of awkward silence but then she grinned and he laughed, albeit uncomfortably.

“Yes,” he said, taking a seat at a nearby table, “I guess you could say that. Though people are rarely so direct. Sometimes I think they'd rather just accept the fiction and move on.”

“I prefer to know what I'm getting myself into,” Rebecca said.

“In that we can agree. What brings you to our ship?”

“Passenger,” she said, as vaguely as possible. But the doctor was here to pry. Of that she was certain. Or perhaps he simply could not take a hint.

“Ah, to Riley? Not exactly a popular destination.”

“No,” she said, “but this is not a vacation.”

“Seems like your business would’ve provided you better accommodations.”

“Are you always this inquisitive, Dr. Ridley?”

“Actually,” he said, standing, “yes. That's my job.”

“Well, my business prefers to save money when it can and there aren't exactly a lot of passenger ships that service Riley. It was this or a charter. A charter to Riley would have been . . .”

“Considerably more expensive,” Ridley said, sauntering to the window. “Beautiful, isn't she?”

“Absolutely,” Kensington said as she walked over and stood beside him. Ridley looked at their reflections in the glass and was disconcerted to learn that she was taller than him.

“So I've read your file.”

He got the reaction he expected. Kensington jerked her head around and glared at him, open-mouthed. In an instant the look was gone and had he not been watching, it would have been easy to miss. Still, she cursed herself for the weakness, in spite of all her training, particularly as she knew he had noticed.

“I'm glad to know you are on top of things.”

“Yes, well, it’s one of the less pleasant aspects of my job.” Dr. Ridley looked down at his feet and rocked back and forth on his heels. Repose was a trait he lacked and he was always fidgeting, one way or another. It was a habit his mother had tried—and failed—to break.

“Imagine that.”

Kensington looked straight ahead. Dr. Ridley scared her, in the way that people of his ilk always had. She had drunk her fill of them, back when she was only a child. During the testing. When the decisions and judgments they had made murdered her dream. She hated them, really. Hated the way they looked at her. Hated the way they nodded their heads and murmured “um-hm” whenever she answered their questions.

Then they scribbled on their little pads or tapped their fingers across computer screens, always doubting. Every look was an accusation, every word more evidence of disbelief. In their eyes, she was a liar. Both to them and herself.

“Just a safety precaution, of course.”

He stood there now, waiting for her to respond, she guessed. Waiting for her to give him something more he could judge her by. Instead, she glanced around the dining hall, admiring the stark metallic sheen that covered every surface. A throwback to a time when such minimalist decoration was in vogue.

Her intent was to hold out, to make him speak first, no matter what he might prefer. But her heart wasn't in it, and she was never one for silence. “Of course,” she finally answered, far too long after such a response was expected. And then, “I suppose you are afraid I'm going to murder you in your sleep? Remove your heart with a carving knife?”

She was surprised that the doctor's chuckle seemed genuine. “It must seem like that, right? But no, actually. Not that at all. I suppose you've never seen your file, have you?”

“Of course not,” she said. “Apparently, my own mind is classified.”

“Yes, well, I've never thought that was quite fair, especially with someone like you.”

She gave him the same disgusted look as before, and he held up a hand as if to defend some imminent physical attack. “I meant no offense,” he said. “Far from it. Indeed—and I know it probably doesn't mean much coming from me—your record is extraordinary. You would have been a true credit to the fleet. If anything, you were overqualified.”

“Yeah, well, too bad I'm crazy.”

Dr. Ridley looked down at his feet, and she could almost feel his disappointment. “I'm sorry you grew up believing that, especially since it's not true. The truth is you're not crazy at all.”

When Ridley looked at Rebecca this time, confusion met his eyes.

“There are many neuroses associated with warp travel,” he continued. “The most widely known, of course, is Braddock's Syndrome, or what the space jockey's call, sleep insanity. Something about the dreams causes people to lose themselves, often with violent consequences. And it is true that the testing indicated that you may have a heightened susceptibility to its effects.”

He paused, and she waited. When it became clear that she wasn't going to speak, he continued.

“In truth, you were only just across the cutoff line. If what they tell me is true, were you to take the tests today, you would probably have passed. In any event, you aren't crazy. And everything about your psychological makeup tells us that you never will be. Were it not for the fact that you are also susceptible to CNF, I wouldn't be concerned at all.”

“CNF?” Rebecca repeated.

“Oh I'm sorry, Dr. Kensington,” Ridley said, although he secretly relished having the upper hand in at least one area, “I thought you knew. Critical Neural Failure is another condition. Far rarer than Braddock's. We don't really understand it, not that we understand Braddock's either.

“The sufferers of CNF don't go insane. Something in their brain simply snaps. And then it shuts down. They go to sleep and never wake up. That's what they were afraid would happen to you, even more so than the other. In any event, I just thought you should know now where things stand, before we depart. While you can still change your mind.”

Rebecca released a breath she had been holding for some time. “That's all right, Doctor,” she said finally, “I have important business on Riley, and it's worth the risk.”

“Well,” Dr. Ridley said (he had expected no other reply), “if you ever want to talk . . .”

“If I ever need to talk,” she replied as she started to walk toward the door, “I'll be sure to make an appointment.” Then she turned and was gone.

Chapter 4

Aidan had heard once—and he had no reason to disbelieve it—that sailors at sea in the age of wood and iron included in their pay a measure of rum, a measure that each man treasured almost above his own life. He had also been told that mutinies were more likely to result from a deficit in this remuneration than other, seemingly less trivial, complaints.

Whatever was or was not correct about that story, he could say for certain that it was no longer true. His ship, or the ship that was his, before it blew up in deep space with only one lonely survivor, had nothing of the sort, and alcohol was forbidden to the crew. So, when the fleet finally reached space dock in orbit around the Earth, the first thing he did was seek out a bar. He found one on the second sublevel, wedged in between a tattoo parlor and a pawnshop.

It was a Merchant Marine pub and it should have been a place he felt at home. But as hooded eyes turned suspiciously his way, he felt the urge in the depths of his stomach to back away. To run from those looks, to hide from them. It wasn’t that he was a stranger. No, they were expecting him, even if they didn’t know it was him they were expecting. As he walked to the bar, he felt the eyes upon him, fading only as he approached the bear of a man who apparently ran the place.

The tavern had a dirty feel. From the walls hung nets and anchors, oars and old ships' steering wheels. The Interstellar Guilds claimed an affinity, a direct lineage really, to the seafarers of old, and he had never been in a guild tavern that didn't look exactly like this.

He glanced up at the mural over the bar, a tacky bit of ostentation that nevertheless seemed completely appropriate for the place. It was of an ancient mariner, floppy yellow hat pulled down over his eyes almost to his beard, gray great coat hanging loosely around him. His arm was extended, grasping the hand of another man, this one tall and clean-shaven, the guild emblem emblazoned on the shoulder of his blue jacket. “Unto the Ends of the Earth and Beyond,” was written in cursive above them in metallic gold leaf.

As Aidan sat down at the bar, the crashing cymbals and metal buzz of the end of some neo-cosmic rock song he didn't know assaulted his ears. When “Sweet Home Alabama” started, he longed for simpler days.

“Bourbon,” he said. “A double on the rocks.”

The bartender stared at Aidan for long enough that he was afraid the man recognized him. But then he turned and grabbed a bottle, pouring a long, thin line of whiskey until the glass was nearly overflowing. Aidan finished half of it in the first gulp. He looked down into the brown liquid and spoke to no one. But he couldn't help hearing.

“Fleet's in,” said a man twice Aidan's age, who sat beside him. At first, Aidan worried he had spoken to him, but a sideways glance alleviated that fear, though the man's unguarded voice boomed loud enough that Aidan could hear every word he spoke to the portly woman, who perched herself on a stool to his right. She was drinking some orange liquid that Aidan did not recognize. “We should hear about the
Vespa
soon enough.”

A chill ran down Aidan's back at the sound of his old ship's name.  It was only a heretofore unknown reserve that kept him from shaking so violently that everyone in the room would notice. He leaned in close to the man, and in that moment, it seemed as though his ears became attuned to his voice, like he and the woman who sat beside him were the only people in all the world.

“Something's wrong there,” she said, “but I don't think you'll learn anything more than we've already heard.”

“And just what have you heard?” the old man asked. “I've heard nothing but rumors and I don't know that I believe any of them. Nobody's been out to the crash site but the fleet.”

“That's just it, isn't it? Nobody's been out to the site because it's trans-Neptune. In the void. No ship should be out there. Not unless it's at warp.”

“Well, maybe the ship blew up in warp.”

“Impossible. Ship goes critical in warp and there's nothing left. Just bits and pieces spread across a billion miles of empty space. No, sir, if that had happened, then they'd just say the ship vanished, like so many others you hear of these days. Not destroyed. Besides, there was a survivor.”

“Aye, so I've heard as well. But I didn't believe it.”

“It's true, if Jackson out of communications isn't full of it. The fleet radioed it in. They gave a full report. Found him near Pluto, just beyond the warp zone.”

“That's the end of your mystery then,” the old man said, downing his drink. “He's the cause. There can be no doubt.”

The woman clicked her tongue and shook her head. “You'd be wrong there or at least that's what the fleet says.”

“No!”

“Apparently, they think it was an accident.”

Aidan glanced at the man just as a look of disgust spread over his face. “Barkeep,” he said, “I'm gonna need another drink.”

“Maybe they're right,” the woman said, lifting her drink so that it hovered just beneath her mouth. “I heard the captain of the ship that found him examined the evidence herself.”

“So that's just it? She gets to decide all on her own? No inquest? No investigation? No trial? Nothing?”