Time Past (39 page)

I fumbled upward over the console and managed to pat what I thought was the visual interface control until the outside view was replaced by a narrow figure against a fuzzy background. Humanoid. Muscled arms and torso, long plaits of hair, vertical-irised eyes staring through me. H’digh.

Henoit’s voice seemed to tickle my ear. Listen.

Invidi yacht. Respond.
H’digh are supposed to be patient hunters, but the female’s voice rose in annoyance.

“I can hear you,” I mumbled, and hoped the pickups caught my response.

You will dock that ship at the space station.

I was so slow-witted, it took me a moment to work out she meant Jocasta.

I know you’re thinking: if I can stall them long enough, ConFleet will send reinforcements. But there is only one jump point in this system. Three of our small ships are waiting next to it. If ConFleet sends a ship through, the Q’Chn will be inside before they know what hit them. And soon we’ll have Vengeful to use as our own.

Pause. Boom... boom... the blood in my head, the hum of
Farseer
’s engines, the sound of time dripping away.

Bring the ship back or we will let the Q’Chn loose on the station. Do it now.

Not fighting over Jocasta. Someone wants
Farseer
. I bet An Serat has renewed his ties with the New Council to get it.

Will she carry out the threat? I can call their bluff, but I don’t know where I can go if I do. Jump to Central or run away in flatspace until ConFleet beat back the Q’Chn.

If ConFleet comes. Last time they didn’t. They left us to the Seouras for half a year.

I leaned hopelessly on the panel and the monitor flicked back to outside view.
Vengeful
drifted dead in space. It must have decelerated just before the Q’Chn hit, because its momentum was negligible. Surrounded by a trailing cloud: wisps of atmosphere, bodies, pieces of equipment, and debris. Small ships were docked at its ventral and lateral ports, another under its nose. As I watched, a fourth clamped on to another lateral port.

And the station? I activated three vistas of empty space on the viewscreen before the white rings of Jocasta appeared. We were quite close. Despite my wavering,
Farseer
must have kept on course. The New Council freighter was maneuvering closer to one of Jocasta’s docking ports. A number of smaller ships were leaving those ports, and one shaved the larger ship dangerously close in its haste to leave. As many people getting out while they could. Exactly what happened when the Seouras arrived.

This time not Bendarl marines stalking my corridors. This time the real monsters.

No. No more killing.

I wished I could see like an Invidi, but all I could do was what I thought was right at that moment. So I aimed
Farseer
at the docks in the center of Jocasta.

I must have blacked out for a few minutes, because the next thing I felt was a jolt that reawakened every ache. I slid down the tilted deck and smashed into the other wall, too dazed to do more than grab weakly at the console. My shoulder made an audible crack as it hit but I didn’t feel anything. Numb all over, feeling in every limb beginning to fade. The thin pain at the top of my head from the link with
Farseer
overlay it all like a high whine on the edge of hearing.

Get up, stupid. You’ve docked.

I tried to repeat the words aloud through lips that didn’t feel right.

The New Council is here. They’re going to let Q’Chn loose on my station. Get out of this ship and go do something about it.

I rolled onto my knees and tried to put both hands on the wall for support, but one arm wouldn’t answer. The hatch should be somewhere near here. Open up, please.

I tried to trace the patterns in the wall surface and visualize the hatch opening, but my fingers slipped and skated over the surface and I couldn’t stay upright without leaning on it. The image of the hatch kept turning into a face, a flat circle with a toothed gash right across it and raised eyebrows that crawled up and down saying, “Assembly of the Poor.”

I leaned my face on the cool wall like I did in the dock on
Vengeful
. It dug into my cheek. Etching patterns into me. Eating into me like the Tor programs eat into our systems.

“Dammit, open the door,” I mumbled. Surely that New Council captain would believe I came as soon as I could. Surely she wouldn’t let Q’Chn loose on Jocasta, like they’re loose on
Vengeful
at this moment. What happened to An Barik? And Kiri and the corporal.

Not that on Jocasta, please no. An Serat can have
Farseer
, just let me keep the station and my friends safe...

The hatch slid open under my hand and I crumpled out at the base of an Invidi. He towered over me in his silver environmental suit. I let out the breath I’d gulped automatically. Atmosphere available, thoughtful of him. Or someone in the Bubble was keeping an eye on the dock.

Behind the Invidi, a small shuttle sat squeezed against the wall of the bay.
Farseer
was skewed across it. The jolt I’d felt had been from our rough landing. I’d directed
Farseer
into the open docking bay all right, but deceleration was too late. We’d slammed into the far end of the bay, padded and netted for such occasions.

One of the Invidi’s tentacles reached down and tapped my shoulder. An impersonal touch, as if to confirm my position.

“It’s about time,” said An Serat.

Twenty-nine

T
he darkness smelled of Henoit. I took a long breath through my nose. It tingled in the back of my throat and streamed warmth into my gut.

Then nausea hit and I curled around it and vomited over the side of the bed. Must be flu again. Grace warned me it was going around...

But in the out-town I don’t have a bed. I retched again and groaned, hating the taste and the way the blood pooled heavy in my nose, blocking out the H’digh scent that wasn’t real. All in my head. I’ll never see him again except in my head. Nor Will...

A voice said something I couldn’t catch. Cool hands lifted my dangling head. Something soft supported it from behind. Wetness wiped my eyes and I could see.

Eleanor’s face, close-up and slightly out of focus. “Lie still.” It had been her voice and this time I understood the words.

Hiss of injector. The room beyond Eleanor clicked into focus. Secondary hospital block in Gamma, judging from the skylight construction. Now I could feel my whole body properly, not in patches as if through a malfunctioning atmospheric suit. Stiff joints, a throbbing ache above my left eye, and a pins and needles-like sensation in my left arm that indicated Eleanor had used some procedure involving a stasis field, which was usually to help bones knit. I must have cracked my shoulder harder than I thought.

Memory clicked into place, too.

“What happened to
Vengeful?
” My voice a hardly audible croak.

“They lost.” Eleanor’s voice was almost lost in the whirr of a suction cleaner as she bent over to clean the floor beside my bed. “The Q’Chn boarded them and now they’re drifting.”

I thought of the small ships I’d seen coming from the freighter. Small ships with Q’Chn biosignals. Bile rose in my throat again as I imagined the chaos and the carnage when they entered the cruiser.

“Some of the escape pods and shuttles got away.” Eleanor dropped the cleaner with more force than necessary in its stand against the wall. “We’ve got a few here in the hospital. Most of them headed for the jump point. Some of them even got through.” She rubbed her face tiredly. “It’s a mess out there. Bits of ships and bodies floating everywhere.”

“I saw An Serat in the docking bay...” I turned and sat up, but it made me retch again. The room rocked gently like a boat in a swell as I just made the side of the bed in time.

Eleanor glared at me and reached for the cleaner again. “They’re here.”

“Huh?” Oh, this is a disgusting feeling. “Who?”

“The New Council. Murdoch persuaded Rupert to give them docking permission.”

Hard to refuse someone holding an activated weapon at your head—in this case, the threat of the Q’Chn. “Did they bring Q’Chn onstation?”

“In the docks. So I heard.”

A nightmare come true. I tried to gather my thoughts but apprehension got in the way.

A human in nurse’s smock put his head around the door. “They’re doing another broadcast, Doctor. Thought you might want to watch.”

“Thanks.” Eleanor tapped one of the interface panels on the wall opposite the bed. The comm unit’s visual link brightened to show two figures against one of the generic EarthFleet blue backgrounds used for official announcements. One of them was the captain of the New Council ship, Venner; the other was Stone.

Venner stood behind Stone, who sat at a table empty of everything but a Confederacy logo in the center. His hands were clasped on the edge of the circle formed by nine thirteen-pointed stars containing a diamond of four stars. Numerical symbolism had been the only kind all members would agree upon. Stone’s shoulders were squared and tense, and although he didn’t look directly at Venner, his eyes flicked sideways occasionally.

Venner was as calm as any other H’digh I’d seen or known. I didn’t think it was a facade—Henoit never understood the sharp twist of anxiety I’d get in my stomach before an important meeting or before visiting his parents. He said the H’digh have no equivalent word for “fear,” which at the time I dismissed as hyperbole to impress aliens. Later, thinking it over, I realized he’d never shown anything that could be interpreted as fear, nor did his actions ever seem to spring from that motive.

So this Venner might be the same. She wasn’t physically much like Henoit, except in her flat expression. Her face was thinner, longer, the pigmentation uneven like dark freckles on the reddish skin. Her vertical-pupiled eyes were dark amber, where his had been pale yellow. She gazed steadily at the pickup—she must have had practice staring down aliens, because H’digh normally did not allow eye contact, unless with enemies or lovers.

Stone cleared his throat. “Good morning, residents of Jocasta.”

Eleanor’s timer showed 0800 hours.

“I have been asked by our friends, the New Council representatives, to clarify a few matters for you. First, the problem of public safety.”

Venner put a long hand on his shoulder. A proprietary gesture. “We intend you should not suffer from our presence,” she said. “We are
your
representatives, yes. Our work done is for your benefit.” She spoke Earth Standard. Slowly, and with a nasal accent, but a great concession nonetheless.

Stone cleared his throat again. “Yes, well, I’m sure we all feel better about that now.”

Eleanor snorted.

I watched Stone more carefully. His neat gray suit was the same, his light hair and face smooth. But the hands clasped on the table were whitening at the knuckles.

“What I’m going to ask you to do,” he continued, “is to cooperate with Security in their work to keep the station running as normally as possible. Now, I realize some of you with business schedules to keep may have some problems. You need to refer these problems to your section administrators, who will record your particulars. We are working on compensation issues”—his eyes flicked back at Venner—“at this moment. Please be patient.”

Venner’s eyelids twitched in time with a muscle in her cheek.

The sheen of sweat on Stone’s face began to seep into his collar. Bet he hasn’t taken a pheromone inhibitor. Thinks he can cope with the effect. I’d thought the same in my first days on Rhuarl. But constant exposure without protection means you end up unable to eat or sleep. Stone would learn.

He glanced down at a handcom beside his left elbow. “There is no access to the jump point at present. Again, please be patient about this, and we will advise you when the situation changes. If you feel you have a case for preferential access to the jump point when it does reopen, please lodge a claim with your local magistrate.

“I’m told there have been rumors of unauthorized entry of dangerous individuals...”

It took me a moment to realize he meant the Q’Chn.

“... this administration assures you these rumors are groundless. Our New Council friends have promised no incursions into the residential areas will be permitted. However, you are once again asked to stay away from the center and to use the spokes as little as possible. Businesses in the spokes are urged to refrain from presenting their compensation requests until the situation clarifies.”

He leaned forward. “I urge you not to listen to rumor and hearsay, but to wait quietly for further information from official sources. That’s all from me for the moment. Have a pleasant day.”

The image clouded back to wall surface, but not before we glimpsed Stone pushing back his chair and glaring up at Venner.

I eased my legs over the side of the bed and grimaced in disgust as I realized both legs and arms were marbled with purplish bruises from burst blood vessels. It looked awful. But at least the room didn’t rock as badly this time.

“How many Q’Chn are there in the center?” I said.

“I don’t know.”

“Have any ships run away insystem?”

“Halley, I’ve had my hands full here. You’ll have to ask Murdoch.” She reached under the bed and placed some folded clothes beside me. Dark blue ConFleet uniform, gray regulation underwear. “You’d better go over to Security, don’t call from here. Bill said the New Council can monitor some of our communications. They’ve asked us to minimize calls.”

I picked up the undershirt and pulled it carefully over my head. Carefully, because even that gentle movement pulled stabs of pain across my shoulders and neck. “Ow.”

Eleanor reached for the instrument table, then withdrew her hand with an abrupt shake of the head. “You’ll be okay. Your shoulder’s back in and I don’t want to give you anything until your system shows it’s coping with the detox treatment. And I’m rationing supplies. In case this goes on for a while.”

Her face was tight and pale, three worry lines etched deep in her forehead. “Or in case something goes wrong with the Q’Chn.”