Wormhole (4 page)

The MREs also contained matches and paper. But the brief light the matches provided merely tormented his biological eye. The darkness was better than that. And even though his ship’s life support system survived in some sort of minimal mode, he doubted it could deal with the smoke of a little campfire. The thought of coughing his lungs out while the nanites kept him alive provided all the incentive he needed to avoid that scenario.

Raul’s brain roiled, churning the possibilities into a sloppy hope soup. He could generate heat. Electricity was another matter. For that he needed a rudimentary generator. For that he needed magnets, wire, and a host of other parts. Tools wouldn’t be a problem, not with the virtual machine shop Dr. Stephenson had created in here over his decades of trying to make basic repairs. And even though they’d been ignored after Raul achieved his linkage with the Rho Ship’s neural net and gained control of the stasis
field, those tools now gave him a lifeline. And though he couldn’t access the neural net, that didn’t mean he’d forgotten everything from his previous linkage. Raul knew this ship well enough to figure out how to use those tools to make what he needed.

It would just take time. And time was something he had in abundance.

Janet’s slender fingers slid along the back of Mark’s neck, her delicate touch sending shivers of pleasure down his spine. His own hand responded, fingertips barely touching the hollow of her back, lingering there, the nerves so alert that it seemed each contact produced tiny sparks from her skin to his. He felt her ear touch his, the scent of her bare throat filling his nostrils.

Her body moved against his in perfect rhythm, the feel of her full breasts against his chest robbing him of whatever self-control he still retained. Janet’s skin shone with sweat in the dim light and her breath came in small pants of exertion, barely audible above Mark’s thundering heart. Her bare right leg encircled him and her body swayed. As Mark’s body writhed within her entangling limbs, Janet’s back arched until only his right arm kept her from falling. Then, in a thunderous, climactic crescendo, it ended.

Hearing shouts of approval echo across the room, Mark raised his head to see Jennifer and Heather applauding vigorously.

Even Jack nodded his appreciation. “Now that’s how the tango is supposed to be danced.”

“Wonderfully done,” Janet said as Mark pulled her back to her feet. Turning to Jennifer and Heather, she continued. “You’ve practiced these dances many times. Now I want you to play that dance back in those perfect little memories of yours. Then, one at a time, I will call you up. I want each of you to dance with Mark, exactly as I did.”

“With Mark?” Jennifer sputtered.

“Exactly as I did,” Janet continued. “Everything we do here has a purpose. We’ve been teaching you all the Latin and classical ballroom dances because if you can dance them with abandon, you can dance anything. In the world of which you are now a part, dancing will open a surprising number of doors for you. But first, you must look like you’re having fun and you must be convincing. People should see you dance and wish they were your partner.”

Janet cast a wicked smile at Mark that made him look away. “Just now, I believe you were having fun. I want you to repeat that with Jennifer, then Heather. And I better not notice any difference, or it’s going to be a very, very long night.”

Jennifer sat on the grass, flanked by Mark and Heather, watching the glorious sunset paint the western sky in steadily darkening shades of magenta and purple. Less than a hundred yards up the hill behind them, Janet played with Robby as Jack leaned over the smoking barbeque grill.

“I’m worried about Mom and Dad.” Jennifer surprised herself by saying what she’d been thinking.

Beside her, Heather tensed. “I know. It’s driving me crazy. I’ve been so homesick. But for them...not to know we’re even alive. It gives me nightmares.”

Mark glanced over his shoulder, a quick look to see if Jack and Janet remained out of earshot. “We always talk about it, but we never do anything.”

“Jack told us not to,” Heather replied.

“We never should have asked him,” Jennifer said. “We knew what he’d say.”

“He’s right, you know.”

“I don’t. Not anymore.”

“Me either,” said Mark. “It’s been too long.”

Jennifer felt a lump rise in her throat, leaving her voice husky. “I’m just so scared. If we do it, hack our way onto their laptops, leave them a message. It might get them killed. It might give away our location.”

“And if we don’t?”

“That scares me too.” Jennifer wiped a tear from her cheek. “How long can they go on, not knowing we’re OK?”

Lately, images of her mom sobbing inconsolably had begun crawling through her mind.

A shrill whistle from the direction of the house cut off the conversation.

“Guess dinner’s ready,” Mark said, rising to his feet. “Don’t let Jack see you crying.”

“Wasn’t planning to.”

As they walked up the hill toward the waiting dinner, Jennifer pulled forth the required memories, letting her mask settle in place. As hard as it was, the decision could be put off for a while longer.

In the meantime, they’d gut it out and be the people Jack and Janet expected them to be.

A curly wisp of smoke wafted up from the table. An acrid odor emanated from the soldering iron and irritated Heather’s nose, causing it to crinkle as she sniffed away the oncoming sneeze.

“Waiting on you, Mark.” Jennifer’s jibe barely registered, though, as Mark remained focused on bridging the last delicate trace.

Setting the iron back in its spring stand, Mark leaned over and snapped the plastic cover in place. “That’s it.”

He reached across the laptop, plugging the dongle into the forward USB port.

“It hasn’t cooled,” Jennifer said. “You’ll break it!”

“Trust me.”

“You said that last week,” Heather said, although she had considerably more faith in his electrical craftsmanship than her comment indicated.

“Power spike. Not my fault.”

Heather laughed. “OK. OK. Let’s just finish this off and test it.”

Despite the banter, she could see Mark was excited. They all were. If this worked, it marked a revolution in the capabilities of their computer lab, intelligence center, or whatever they chose to call the thatch-roofed outbuilding that housed the Frazier computer and communications complex. They had already modified the circuit boards in all the laptops to add built-in subspace receiver transmitters, but this would enable them to add subspace communications capabilities to any computer, just by plugging in a small USB device.

Heather let her gaze wander the room, pausing at the sealed door leading into the adjacent “clean room.” It represented the culmination of their efforts these last three months. Still, as amazing as their electronics work had become, it only formed a part of Jack’s sci-fi weekends, the other part being their ongoing headset exploration of their starship’s data banks.

When they’d arrived at the Frazier hacienda, it had been mid-January, Bolivian summer. They hadn’t recognized the pressure cooker in which they were about to be immersed. To be fair, Jack and Janet had clearly laid out the training program, and Mark, Jen, and Heather had all volunteered. Knowing what she knew now, she would still have done it...just not with the same degree of enthusiasm.

She still missed her parents, and worried about them constantly. Only fear that contact would place them in danger had prevented communication, that and the fact that Jack had strictly forbidden it. But Heather’s visions had taken on a darker tone of late, bringing her to the brink of a decision that could knock Mark, Jen, and herself from this perch they had worked so hard to attain. Had it been any other topic, she would have consulted
Jack and Janet. But not this. It was too important, too personal. Mark and Jennifer were the only ones she would divulge her fears to. But not yet. Not while hope remained.

“Helloooo. Anyone home in there?” Mark nudged her.

“What? Oh, sorry. Lost in thought.”

“Let’s fire it up.”

Jennifer opened the laptop, took a deep breath, and pressed the power button. The Windows logo replaced the black-and-white BIOS screen. From her position behind and to the right of Jennifer, Heather found the 7,204 rpm drive noise disconcerting; still, six hundredths of a percent’s variance from the drive spec was well within tolerance: nothing to worry about. Though Heather succeeded in banishing the small worry from her thoughts, her mind replaced it with another. Would the USB oscillating circuit deliver the required performance? It would if the printed circuit thin film resistors performed within tolerance. Christ. Chinese components.

“So far so good,” Jen said. “Now let’s see if our super Wi-Fi dongle works.”

Mark cracked his knuckles. “After all that effort, it better.”

“It will.” Heather hoped she sounded more confident than she felt. A probability of 73.65847 percent was far from a certainty.

Jen began rattling off the steps from her mental checklist.

“Entering coordinate. Identifying available networks. Selecting network. Sniffing packets...verified. Inserting TCP packets...verifying responses.” Heather found herself grinning even as Jennifer thrust her hands into the air. “Yes!”

Smacking Mark’s hand in a quick series of high fives, Heather finally released the breath she’d been holding.

Mark leaned down for a closer look at the display. “You know what this means? Our bag of tricks just got a hell of a lot lighter.”

“Plug ’n play.”

Mark placed his hand on Jen’s left shoulder. “It’s dinnertime. Let’s shut it down. We’ve got a long night ahead.”

The vision tugged at the mind curtain Heather closed to block it. Mark had no idea how right he was.

“Are you ready for this?” Jack’s voice held an edge nobody without the neural augmentations Heather, Mark, and Jen enjoyed could have detected.

“Why shouldn’t we be?” Mark replied. “We’ve been linking with the Bandolier Ship headsets every week.”

“True, but up until now you’ve only browsed the ship’s unprotected data banks. Today, I’m going to ask more of you.”

“Such as?”

Jack turned away to stare out the window that filled most of the living room’s western wall. For perhaps a minute he remained perfectly still, his lithe form silhouetted against the sunlit hills that rolled away from the ranch house to the horizon. When he turned once more to face them, his face formed an unreadable mask.