Finity's End - a Union-Alliance Novel (53 page)

Rain beat on the leaves, ran in small streams off the forested hills. Cylinders were failing, but Fletcher nursed them along to the last before he changed out. Hadn't spoiled any. Hadn't any to spare. He kept a steady pace, tracing Old River by his roar above the storm.

You get lost, he'd heard Melody say, Old River he talk loud, loud. You hear he long, long way.

And it was true. He wouldn't have known his way without remembering that. The Base was upriver, always upriver.

Foot slipped. He went down a slope, got to his knee at the bottom. Suit was torn. He kept walking, listening to River, walking in the dark as well.

Waked lethargic in the morning, realizing he'd slept without changing out; and his fingers were numb and leaden as he tried to feel his way through the procedure. He'd not dropped a cylinder yet, or spoiled one, even with numb fingers. But he was down to combining the almost-spent with the still moderately good, and it took a while of shaking hands and short oxygen and grayed-out vision before he could get back to his feet again and walk.

He changed out three more, much sooner than he'd thought, and knew his decisions weren't as good as before. He sat down without intending to, and took the spirit stick from his suit where he'd stashed it, and held it, looking at it while he caught his breath.

Melody and Patch were on their way by now. Feathers bound to the stick were getting wet in the rain that heralded the hisa spring, and rain was good. Spring was good, they'd go, and have a baby that wouldn't be him.

Terrible burden he'd put on them, a child that stayed a child a lot longer than hisa infants. The child who wouldn't grow.

He'd had to be told, Turn loose, let go, fend for yourself, Melody child.

Satin said, Go. Go walk with Great Sun.

That part he didn't want. He wanted, like a child, his way; and that way was to stay in the world he'd prepared for.

But Satin said go. And among downers Satin was the chief, the foremost, the one who'd been out there and up there and walked with Great Sun, too.

He almost couldn't get his feet under him. He thought, I've been really stupid, and now I've really done it and Melody can't help. I'll die here, on this muddy bank.

And then it seemed there was something he had to do…

couldn't remember what it was, but he had to get up. He had to get up, as long as he could keep doing that.

He went down again.

Won't ever find me, he thought, distressed with himself. It must be the twentieth time he'd fallen. This time he'd slid down a bank of wet leaves.

He tried to get up.

But just then a strange sound came to his ears.

A human voice, changed by a breather mask, was saying, "Hey, kid! Kid!"

Not anymore, he thought. Not a kid anymore.

And he held onto the stick in one hand and worked on getting to his feet one more time.

He didn't make it—or did, but the ground gave way. He went reeling down the bank, seeing brown, swirling water ahead of him.

"God!" A body turned up in his path, rocked him back, flung them both down as the impact knocked the breath out of him. But strong hands caught him under the arms, saving him from the water. There was a dark spot in his time-sense, and someone sounded an electric horn, a signal, he thought, like the storm-signal.

Was a worse storm coming? He couldn't imagine.

Hands tugged at the side of his mask. His head was pounding. Then someone had shoved what must be a whole new cylinder in, and air started getting to him.

"It's all right, kid," a woman's voice said. "Just keep that mask on tight. We'll get you back."

The woman got him halfway up the slope. A man showed up and lifted, and he finally got his feet under him.

He walked, his legs hurting. He hung on one and the other of his rescuers for the hard parts, and drew larger and larger breaths, his head throbbing from the strain he'd put on his body.

They got him down to a trail, and then someone had a litter and they carried him. He lay on it feeling alternately that he was going to tumble off and that he was turning over backwards, while Great Sun was a sullen glow through gray clouds and the rain that sheeted his mask. It was hard going and his rescuers didn't talk to him. Breathing was hard enough, and he figured they'd have nothing pleasant to say.

By evening they'd reached the Base trail and he realized muzzily he must have been asleep, because he didn't remember all of the trip or the turn toward the Base.

Somebody waked him up now and again to see that he was breathing all right, and he had two cylinders, now, both functioning, so breathing was a great deal easier, better than he'd been able to rely on for the days he'd been out.

Satin didn't want him. Melody didn't want him…

The bottom dropped out of the universe. He was falling. Falling into the water. He fought it.

Second pitch. It was
V
-dump. He wasn't on Old River's banks. He wasn't suffocating. He was on a ship, a million—million klicks from any world, even from any respectable star.

His ship was slowing down, way down, to match up with a target star. They were all right.

No enemies. They'd have heard if there'd been enemies.

Finity's End
was solidly back in the universe again, moving with the stars and their substance.

He opened his eyes. Lay there, fumbled open a nutri-pack and sucked it down, aware of Jeremy rummaging after one.

"You all right?" he asked Jeremy.

"Yeah, fine."

He saw Jeremy had gotten his own packet open. The intercom gave an all-clear and told them their schedule. They had two hours to clean up, eat, and get back underway.

He lay there, thinking of the gray sky spinning slowly around above the treetops. Of rain on the mask. Of the irreproducible sound of thunder on the hills.

The room smelled like somebody's old shoes. And two nutri-packs down, he found the energy to unbelt and sit up.

"Shower," he said to the kid, as Jeremy stirred out of his bunk. "Or I get it."

"You can have it if you want," Jeremy said.

"No, priority to you." His stomach hadn't quite caught up. He had an ache in his shoulders. Another in his heart. "Three hours at this jump-point. We'll both make it."

"Yeah, we're going to make it," Jeremy said, and hauled his skinny body out of the bunk. "No stinking Mazianni at the point, we're going to get to Esperance and the Old Man's going to be happy and we'll be
fine
."

"Sounds good to me," he said, and while Jeremy went to the shower, he got up, self-disgusted, out of a bed that wanted changing, in clothes that wanted washing. He dragged one change of clothes out of the drawer, wished he had a change of sheets. He got out one of the chemical wipes and wiped his face and hands. It smelled sharp, and clean.

He could remember the stale smell of the mask flinging his own breath back at him. He could remember the fever chill of the earth, and the uneven way his legs had worked on the way home.

And Satin's stick in his hand. He'd refused to let go of it. He'd said, "Satin gave it to me," when the rescuers questioned him, and that name had shaken them, as if he'd claimed to have seen God.

He was
here
. He was safe.

He'd clung to the stick during that rescue without the remotest notion what to do with it, or what he was supposed to do.

Satin, in that meeting, had seen further into his future than he could imagine. She'd
been
in space. She knew where she sent him.

But he hadn't known.

He sat on the edge of his bunk, listening to the intercom tell them further details, where they were, how fast they were going, numbers in terms he didn't remotely understand.

But he was safe. He'd come that close to dying, and he sat here hurtling along in chancy space and telling himself he was very, very lucky; and, yes, beyond a doubt in his mind, now, Satin had sent him here. Satin, who'd known the Old Man.

He wondered if Satin had had the faintest idea he was a Neihart, or why he was on her world, when she'd sent him into space. He'd never from his earliest youth believed that downers were as ignorant as researchers kept trying to say they were. But he'd never attributed mystical powers to them: he was a stationer, too hard-headed for that—most of the time.

But underestimate them? In his mind, the researchers often did.

And in his dream and in his memory Satin had known his name.

Satin had known all about him.

She'd not gotten that from the sky. Sun hadn't whispered it to her. She'd talked to Melody and Patch.

And knowing everything hisa could remotely know about him, she'd sent him… not to the station.
To his ship
. Had she known
Finity
was in port? Had she known even that, Satin, sitting among the Watcher-stones, to which all information flowed, on quick downer feet?

Satin, who perhaps this moment was sitting, looking up at a clouded sky, and, in the manner of an old, old downer, dreaming her peace, her new heavens, into being.

She'd known. Yes, she'd known. As the Old Man of
Finity's End
had known—things he'd never imagined as the condition of his universe.

"
All right, cousins
," the intercom said. "
You can eat what you stowed before jump or you can venture out for a stretch. Both mess halls will be in service in ten minutes, so it's fruit bars and nutri-packs solo or it's one of those hurry-up dinners which your bridge crew will be very grateful to receive. Remember, there is still no laundry
."

Jeremy came out of the shower smelling of soap and bringing a puff of steam with him. It was far better air now. The fans were making a difference.

Downbelow slipped away in the immediacy of clean water and warmth and soap. Fletcher stripped clothes and went, chased through his mind by images of woods and water, the memory of air that wouldn't come, but the shower was safe and clean and Jeremy was his talisman against nightmares and loss.

"Sir?" JR found the Old Man's cabin dimly lighted as he brought the tray in, heard the noise of the shower, in the separate full bath
Finity's
senior crew enjoyed. He ordered the lights up, set the meal in the dining alcove, and took the moment to make the stripped bed with the sheets set by and waiting.

The Old Man did such things himself. The senior-juniors habitually ran errands, down to laundry, down to the med station, and back, for all the bridge crew, whose time was more valuable to the ship; but the senior crew usually did their own bed-making and food-getting if they were at all free to do so.

In the same way the Old Man rarely ordered a meal in his quarters. He was always fast on the recovery, always in his office before the galley could get that organized.

Not this time. Not with the stress of double-jumping in and short sleep throughout their stay at Voyager. He felt the strain himself, in aches and pains. Mineral depletion. Jeff had probably dumped supplement in the fruit juice, as much as wouldn't hit the gut like a body blow.

The shower cut off. JR poured the coffee. In a few more moments the bath door opened and the senior captain walked out, barefoot, in trousers and turtleneck sweater, in a gust of moist, soapy air.

"Good morning, sir." JR pulled the chair back as James Robert stepped into the scuffs he wore about his quarters, disreputable, but doubtless comfortable. A click of a remote brought the screen on the wall live, and showed them a selection of screens from the bridge.

They were at the jump-point intermediate between Voyager and Esperance, a small lump of nothing-much that radiated hardly at all. If there'd been any other mass in two lights distance, the point would have been tricky to use… dangerous. But there was nothing else out here, and it drew a ship down like a far larger mass.

Systems showed optimal. They were going to jump out on schedule. JR remarked on nothing that was ordinary: it annoyed the Old Man to listen to chatter in the morning, or after jumps. He simply stood ready to slide the chair in as the Old Man sat down.

He looked up. The captain had stopped. Cold. Staring off into nowhere with a sudden looseness in his body that said this was a man in distress.

JR moved, bumping past the chair, seized the Old Man's flaccid arm, steered him immediately to the seat at the table.

The Old Man got a breath and laid a shaking hand on the table,

"I'll get Charlie," JR began.

"No!" the Old Man said, the voice that had given him orders all his life, and it was hard to disregard it.

"You should have Charlie," JR said "Just to look—"

"Charlie
has
looked," the Old Man said. "Medicine cabinet, there in the bunk edge. Pill case"

He left the Old Man to get into the medicine compartment, hauled out a small pharmacy worth of pill bottles he'd by no means guessed, and brought them back to the table. The Old Man indicated the bottle he wanted, and JR opened it. The Old Man took the pill and washed it down with fruit juice.

"Rejuv's going," the Old Man said then. "Charlie knows."

It was a death sentence. A long-postponed one. JR sank down into the other chair, feeling it like a blow to the gut

"Does Madison know?"

"All of them." The Old Man was still having trouble talking, and JR kept his questions quiet, just sat there. The realization hit him so suddenly he'd felt the bottom drop out from under him…
this
was what the Old Man had meant at dinner that night back at Voyager.
This
was why it disturbed Madison: that he was
saying
it in public, for others to hear, not the part about the peace, but the part about
finishing
. The captain—
the
captain, among all other captains
Finity
had known, was arranging all his priorities, the disposition of his power, the disposition of his enemy, all those things… leading in a specific direction that left his successors no problem
but
Mazian.
That
was why the Old Man had said that peculiar thing about needing Mazian.

No, the Old Man hadn't quarreled with Mallory and then left in some decision to pursue a different direction.

The Old Man had this one, devastatingly important chance to wield the power he'd spent a protracted lifetime building.

Secure the peace. Accomplish it. And look no further into human existence. The final wall was in front of him. The point past which never.

"Shall I call Madison, sir?" he asked the Old Man.

"Why?" the Old Man challenged him sharply. And then directly to him, to his state of mind: "Worried?"

The Old Man never liked soft answers. Least of all now. JR sensed as much and looked him in the eye. "Not for the ship, sir. You'd never risk her. But Charlie's going to be mad as hell if I don't tell him."

The Old Man heard that, added it up—the flick of the eyes said that much—and took a sip of coffee. "I'll thank you to keep Charlie at bay. I've taken to bed for the duration of the voyage. I plan to get to Esperance."

"I'm grateful to know that, sir."

"Precaution," the Old Man said.

"Yes, sir."

"You don't believe it for a minute, do you?"

"I'm concerned."

"And have you been discussing this concern in mess, or what?"

"I haven't. You put one over on me, sir. Completely. I never figured this one."

"Smart lad," the Old Man said. "You always were." He lifted the lid on the breakfast. Eggs and ham. Bridge crew got the attention from the cookstaff on short time schedules. So did the captain. So did the senior-seniors, for their health's sake.

"Yes, sir," he said. "Thank you. I try to be. I suggest you eat all of it and take the vitamins. My shoulders are popping. I'd hate to imagine yours."

"The insufferable smugness of youth." James Robert looked up at him. The parchment character of his skin was more pronounced. When rejuv failed, it failed rapidly, catastrophically. Skin lost its elasticity. The endocrine system began to suffer wild surges, in some cases making the emotions spiral out of control. There might be delusions. Living a heartbeat away from the succession, JR had studied the symptoms, and dreaded them, in a man on whose emotional stability, on whose
sanity
, so very much depended.

"Waiting," the Old Man said, "for me to fall apart."

"No, sir. Sitting here, wondering if you were going to want hot sauce. They didn't put it on the tray."

The Old Man shot him a look. The spark was back in his eye, hard and brilliant.

"You'll do fine," the Old Man said. "You'll do fine, Jamie."

"I hope to, sir, some years from now, if you'll kindly take the vitamins."

"In my good time," the Old Man said in a surly tone. "God. Where's respect?"

"For the living, sir. Take both packets."

"Out. Out! You're worse than Madison."

"I hope so, sir." He saw what reassured him, the vital sparkle in the eyes, the lift in the voice. Adrenaline was up. "I'd suggest you leave the transit to jump to Alan and Francie. Sir."

"Jamie, get your insufferable youth back to work. I'll
be
at Esperance. I'm not turning a hand on this run until I have to."

"Yes, sir" he said, glad of the rally—and heartsick with what he'd learned.

"Out. Tell Madison he's got the entry duty. With first shift."

And not at all happy.

"I'm moving everybody up," the Old Man said with perfect calm. "I'm retiring after this next run. You're to take Francie's post. Madison will take mine."

"Sir…"

"I think I'm due a retirement. At a hundred forty-nine or whatever, I'm due that. I'll handle negotiations. Administrative passes to the next in line. Filling out forms, signing orders. That's all going to be Madison's, Jamie-lad. As you'll be junior-most of the captains. And welcome to it. I'm posting you. At Esperance."

The Old Man had surprised him many a time. Never like this.

"I'm not ready for this!"

The Old Man had a sip of coffee. And gave a weak laugh, "Oh, none of us are, Jamie. It's vanity, really, my hanging on, waiting for an arbitrary number, that hundred and fifty. It's silliness. I'm getting tired, I'm not doing my job on all fronts, I'm delegating to Madison as is: he'll do the nasty administrative things and I do what I do best, at the conference table. Senior diplomat. I rather like that title. Don't you think?"

"I'll follow orders, sir."

"Good thing. Fourth captain had damned well better. Meanwhile you've things to clean up before you trade in A deck."

Fletcher. The theft. All of that. And for the first time in their lives he'd be separated from Bucklin, who'd be in charge of the juniors until Madison himself retired.
He'd
be taking over fourth shift, dealing with seniors who'd seen
their
competent, life-long captain bumped to third.

He felt as if someone had opened fire on him, and there was nothing to do but absorb the hits.

"Well?" the Old Man said

"Yes, sir. I'm thinking I've got mop-up to do. A lot of it."

"Better talk to Francie. You'll be going alterday shift, when ops is in question. Better talk to Vickie, too." That was Helm 4. "You've shadowed Francie often enough."

At the slaved command board—at least five hundred hours, specifically with Francie. During ship movement, maybe a hundred. He had no question of his preparation in terms of ship's ops. In terms of his preparation in basic good sense he had serious doubts.

"Yes, sir," he said.

"Jamie," the Old Man said.

"Yes, sir?"

"The plus is… I get to see my succession at work. I get to know it
will
do all right. There's no greater gift you can give me than to step in and do well. Fourth shift will do Esperance system entry. You'll sub for Francie on this jump. We'll hold the formalities after we've done our work there. King George can wait for his party. We'll have occasion for our own celebration if we pull this off. We'll be posting a new captain."

Breath and movement absolutely failed him for a moment. He had no words, in the moment after that, except, quietly: "Yes, sir."