Finity's End - a Union-Alliance Novel (48 page)

"The situation on A deck," the Old Man said with no preamble, as JR stood in front of that desk in the Old Man's office, the one with the bookcases, the mementoes of old, wooden ships. Past the Old Man's iron control, JR had no difficulty detecting distress: personal, distracting distress, which the senior captain could well do without when he faced life and death decisions, peace and war decisions.

"Not the captain's immediate concern, sir. I hope to have a solution."

"We've never had to use the word 'theft.' "

"I'm well aware, sir. I don't know what to say. I don't have an answer." At that moment a message began on the intercom, a general advisement to the ship that
Boreale
and
Champlain
had slipped through Voyager system and that they were proceeding to dock and refuel.

"
Security Red will apply here
," the intercom said, Alan's voice, "
and we will be shifting cargo. The fact that
Boreale
has gone on in close pursuit of
Champlain
remains a matter of concern, but it is not, at the moment, our concern…"

James Robert's finger came down on the console button and the announcement fell silent in the small office.

"I think we know those details."

"Yessir," JR said.

"A spirit stick as I understand it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Smuggled aboard."

"Technically, yes, sir." It wasn't the illegality of it that he felt at question, but the very question how anything of that unusual a nature had gotten past his observation. "Legally in his possession."

Sometimes in the tests the Old Man set him he had to risk being wrong. "Sir, I haven't considered what the case is. Evidence points to someone taking it, I've requested its return, and no one's come forward."

"And there's been a fight."

"Yes, sir. There was a fight." Sometimes, too, the challenge was to hang on to a problem and keep it off B deck. And conversely to know when to send it upstairs. "I'd like to continue to handle this one, sir, on my own resources."

There was a long, a very long silence. If there was a space under the carpet he'd have considered it. As it was he had to stand there, the subject of the senior captain's very critical scrutiny at a time when a very tired, very worn-looking senior captain took spare moments out of his personal rest time, not his duty schedule.

"I take it the investigation is not at a standstill."

"No, sir. Ship movement took precedence, but this can't end with an acceptance of this situation. That won't solve it."

The captain nodded slowly, in concurrence with that assessment, JR thought.

They risked losing Fletcher. That was one thing. They risked setting a precedent, a mode of dealing with each other that might destroy them.

"Ship's honor," JR said faintly, in the Old Man's continued silence. "I know, sir."

"Ship's honor," the Old Man said. "It's the means by which we dare ask those other ships, Jamie, to put aside self-interest. In the last analysis, it's the highest card we have. Think about it. Do we wish to give that up?"

"No, sir." It was hard to make a sound at all. Hard to breathe, until the Old Man dismissed him to the relative safety of the corridor.

Five minutes later he gave Bucklin and Lyra orders.

In fifteen minutes, every unassigned junior including Fletcher was on intercom-delivered notice that the Old Man had inquired about the object; and juniors were spreading out through the ship this time on independent, not team, search.

Give the culprit the opportunity to find the object, in whatever way he or she wished. It wouldn't end it, but it would enable him to put the focus on the interpersonal problem and discover what they were actually dealing with: a theft, or the ruse, or the destruction of something irreplaceable.

Fletcher, however, was with the junior-juniors, all three, when he came on them going through A deck's vacant cabins a search that, in the example he saw, had boxes of whiskey moved, storages opened, bunks swung to look underneath, all with amazing dispatch.

"Fletcher," JR said, and drew Fletcher outside the door to 40A. "The Old Man expresses extreme concern. It's not a property issue. I don't consider it one. He doesn't. If you want to file a complaint with him, that door will be open. I'm asking you, personally, give me time to unravel this."

Fletcher had been moving boxes. His breaths came deep. "I didn't intend to get involved," Fletcher said, and gave a move of the eyes toward the flurry of activity inside. "They wanted to."

If it had been any other circumstance, he would have been dismayed at the thought of the inexpert junior-juniors disarranging cargo. Thumps continuing to come from inside the disused cabin. "I'm impressed with their enthusiasm," he said.

And in the uneasy silence that followed between them: "Fletcher, we're approaching a very dangerous dock. I hope we can resolve things prior to docking. If not, I'm asking you, as I'll ask
Chad
, to refrain from confrontations. Very serious negotiations are riding on it. Alliance-Union negotiations. They could be adversely affected if two of our crew engage on dockside." There was a moment more of silence, and diminishing hope of Fletcher's understanding. "I'm asking your cooperation for a handful of days. We're going to be working hard, tempers are going to be short. You're assigned to watch the junior-juniors, the same as before, but I can take you off that if you feel you'd be better separated from other personnel. You and the junior-juniors can sit in a sleepover together and watch vids, if that's your choice, and you won't have to work."

Fletcher stood there considering what he said. He increasingly expected Fletcher to choose to stay to the sleepover, the safest choice, and the one, in the absence of Fletcher's desire to cooperate, he still might order.

But Fletcher let go the frown, and glanced instead toward the doorway, where the junior-juniors were conducting their search. Then he looked back.

"Even if provoked," Fletcher said. "As long as we're in dock. You've got my promise."

"I'm glad to take your word," he said, and left the junior-juniors to their activity. He hunted down
Chad
with the same proposition, and that quest required a trip out into the rim, where in coats and gloves and with flashlights,
Chad
had paired up with
Wayne
. Another glow, from around the girder-laced curve, showed where Nike and Lyra were operating, in cold deep enough to get through boots.

"I don't know why he picked me,"
Chad
said "That's twice he's come at me like I was the only one."

"I don't know why," he said "I can't defend it. I only know how important it is we keep the peace. On both sides of this."

"I don't even know what the damn stick looks like,"
Chad
said. "It's hard to search for something when you only have a description of it. And that's all I have."

Chad
wanted to convince him he was innocent. He wished he believed it himself. And yet he couldn't dismiss the possibility it was the case. "It's all I have, too," he said to
Chad
.

"I think he did it,"
Chad
said, breath frosting in the light, "and he's just putting us to running rings. I think it's going to turn up somewhere and he'll be the only one not surprised."

"If that's the case," he said. "If it's not the case, the real way this is going to get solved is when we sit down together and look at each other without suspecting the worst. Him. You.
Wayne
. Me. All of us."

"
Chad
's taking the brunt of this,"
Wayne
said. "And I don't think he's to blame."

"He doesn't want to be here, anyway,"
Chad
said.

"And I just talked to the Old Man, and asked for more time. Give me some help,
Chad
."

"Yessir. I won't fight."

He had a confidence in
Chad
he couldn't have in Fletcher, who hadn't been a presence all his life. Chad might be on the wrong side of something, but he wouldn't go against the answer he'd just given.

"Not even if he jumps you,
Chad
. If he does I'll settle it. I know it's hard what I'm asking, but you're both of you strong hands we need, and I'd rather not have you sitting it out in quarters."

"I got my tooth chipped the first time station-boy threw a punch out of nowhere!"

"
Chad
."

"Yessir,"
Chad
said.

"And don't call him that. No words,
Chad
, same as no fighting."

"Yessir,"
Chad
said the second time.

"I take your word on it," he said, wishing it weren't
Chad
's word that was utterly at issue.

And that
Chad
wasn't the only potential explosive in their midst. There was Connor. There was Sue. There was Nike.

Vince seemed to have fallen in on the side of the offended, not the offenders. Vince was, at least, off his mind.

No sign of the stick, not the first twenty-four hours, not the second, and the junior-juniors, early and enthusiastic in their burst of energy, grew frustrated and short-fused.

"We're not going to find it," Linda said.

"Probably," Fletcher said, "we have less chance than the ones in the outer ring."

"We can go out there," Jeremy declared.

"No, we can't. I'm not being responsible for you clambering around in the dark. Senior-juniors are searching that."

Jeremy's shoulders slumped. The junior-juniors were tired to the point of exhaustion. They all had blisters.

And senior crew had found out, unofficially. A number had volunteered extra hours, and hiding places they'd known when they'd been young and foolish.

Some of those searches surprised the junior-juniors, that anyone but them did know those nooks and crannies.

Jake came, having gotten the general description, and said there'd been no stones in the recycling traps, which indicated it hadn't gone into biomass, unless somebody had thought of that and removed the stones before chucking it into a disposal chute.

That was a logical place to search, one Fletcher hadn't thought how to handle in terms of the chemistry; and Jake, the bioneer, had disposed of the question by something so basic his school-fed theory hadn't even considered it.

Notes from all four of the captains turned up one by one in his personal pager, saying, essentially, that the captains were aware, and that official issues aside, if he wanted to discuss the matter, they stood ready to listen.

Fletcher didn't know how to answer, so he delayed answering. The first impulse had been to say, Get me off this ship; and the second one had been a hesitancy to say what might not, even yet, answer where he wanted to go, or what he wanted to do.

He hadn't expected the flurry of senior help in the search.

He hadn't expected the junior-juniors, patching blisters, to keep looking.

He hadn't expected the senior-juniors to show up in the mess hall, half-frozen from the ring skin, looking for hot coffee and looking exhausted as his own small crew. That included
Chad
, who avoided looking at him, who pointedly looked the other way when he stared.

It's destroyed, he said to himself, and
Chad
's scared to say so. It's destroyed or it's lost and
Chad
can't find it.

But none of the senior-juniors talked much, least of all to him, and not that much to each other. There was no rec, meals were catch-as-catch-can, and no one associated together.

This is wrong, Fletcher said to himself, sitting in the A deck mess hall with a coffee cup cooling between his own hands. Jeremy had gotten himself a cup of coffee, and then Vince and Linda had, not their habit. Caffeine wouldn't, Fletcher thought, improve Jeremy's already hair-trigger nerves. He wasn't sure any of the junior-juniors were used to it. But he drank it; and they drank it, a warm-up from the chill of places they'd searched.

Jeremy had fallen asleep yesterday night with the suddenness of a light going off. He'd lain awake with the increasingly heavy responsibility of the ship's search lying on his pillow, and he thought, today,
This is wrong
, with the notion that if he stood up, said, Forget it, it's lost, it may never turn up… he might free everyone, and relieve everyone's nerves, and just let it pass.

He got up, finally, with the notion of doing exactly that, and immediately the junior-juniors wanted to jump up and follow.

"No," he said. "An hour alone. All right? And don't do anything stupid."

"Yessir," Jeremy said.

He went over to that other table, where
Chad
and
Wayne
and Connor were sitting. "Where's JR?" he asked in a carefully neutral tone. "Do you have any notion?"

"Bridge,"
Wayne
said, "last I heard. What's the problem?"

He couldn't go to the bridge. No one could go there without an authorization.

"Thanks," he said, frustrated in his resolution.

"What do you want?"
Wayne
asked, and he looked at Wayne, and the two he had most problem with, and took resolution in both hands.

"To stop this. Just give it up."

"Why?"
Wayne
asked

"Because it's getting nowhere! Somebody lost it. I accept that. Just everybody quit looking. It may turn up ten years from now. It may never turn up. That's the way it is."

"I'll relay that to JR,"
Wayne
said carefully. Neither
Chad
nor Connor said anything. Chad did look at him, an angry look, a wary one. Connor didn't do that much.

He went back to the juniors and sat down,

"We can't give it up," Jeremy said

"Even if we stop looking," Linda said, "we can't give it up."

It was, he thought, the truth, however Linda meant it. He had the captains' messages stacked up and waiting, that he hadn't heard from Madelaine meant only that Madelaine was either under orders or trying to restrain herself, and in all the things that had happened aboard the ship, he could only fault a bad situation and a natural resentment.

It was natural that the senior-juniors wished he'd never come aboard; and maybe it was natural Jeremy and Madelaine and maybe the Old Man wanted him never to leave. He'd become the center of a situation he'd never wanted, and everything had gotten out of hand to the point it had damaged the ship.

Even if we stop looking we can't give it up…

He knew now what a delicate, interconnected structure he'd arrived in, and how it had tried to fit him in, and how he'd damaged it without understanding it… irrevocably so, perhaps. Stopping the search wouldn't cure it

Getting rid of him might relieve the pain, his and theirs, but it wouldn't cure it. There wasn't even an organized evening mess in which he could snag JR into private converse.

In another hour the intercom announced the docking schedule, and particulars of assignments, and they were in their quarters packing duffles reversed in the usual proportion of flash and work clothes: this time it was one dress outfit and the rest work blues.

"
This is James Robert Senior
," the intercom said unexpectedly. "
We have completed cargo purchase and fueling arrangements prior to dock. Senior officers will be engaged in negotiations vital to the peace of the
Alliance
. We have been alert for any merchanter inbound from Esperance in the notion that such a ship might have information on the two ships who jumped close to us. Keep your eyes occasionally toward the station schedules and be aware that if such a ship should come from Esperance vector, the situation might change rapidly and dangerously. Be aware that this station has numerous black marketeers doing business on the docks and that they may feel we threaten their interests. Be alert. Do not violate the schedule and do not leave the accommodations except to come straight to the ship for work. The sleepover is the finest we were able to obtain, and it has some recreational facilities, but we do not believe there will be extensive time aside from sleep and meals. We will not stow any can we have not verified
.

"You are all by now aware that there has been an incident aboard unprecedented in this ship's history. I call on all involved to set aside the matter for the duration of our stay, in the interests of all aboard, and I continue to express confidence that the parties involved will find it in their capacity to resolve the issue in a manner considerate of the ship's best interests and traditions of honor.

"Enjoy your stay.
"

He had continued to fold clothing, Jeremy to tuck in small items like his tape player.

Neither of them said anything. He wished now he'd never reported the theft or made an issue. He said to himself he wanted it forgotten, beyond their next jump, that, in the way of mystical things, he'd gained all he could from his loss and stood to lose all he had, if he insisted on finding it.

The intercom droned on with assignments and shifts. The junior-juniors and
Chad
were at opposite ends of a twenty-four-hour clock. They went down to the assembly area and took their places, Vince and Linda attaching themselves from somewhere farther back in the large, rail-divided rec hall; and Madelaine and others noted their passage through the mob of cousins, giving them small pats on the shoulder, as others did with him. Fletcher ducked his head and studied the rail in front of him, not wanting to communicate. The junior-juniors stood fast about him through the procedures, like some fiercely protective bodyguard, until it was time for the section chiefs to go out and down to take care of customs.