Torchship (29 page)

Journey Day 149. Solar System. Acceleration: 0 m/s
²

Guo flashed a grin as Mitchie floated into the converter
room. “What brings you downbelow?”

“Just checking if you’d let this place go totally to hell
since you got to have it to yourself again.” She could see it was back to its
normal rigid order now that the deckhands weren’t here half the time. “Actually
we have an experiment.”

“Oh?”

“Billy’s making Abdul go through the hydroponics manuals.
They found an alternate recipe for algae crackers. With some flavorings it’s
supposed to taste sweet.”

“Algae cookies?” Guo was clearly dubious.

“In theory.” She took out two napkins wrapped around a
half-dozen cookies each. “I figured if I took yours down I’d get out of trying
them with the kid watching.”

“Don’t have the heart to throw up in front of him?”

“Nope. He’s like a puppy. A skinny puppy always afraid you’re
going to step on him or toss him out the door.”

“Poor guy. Is Billy drunk with power yet?”

“Ha. He’s pulling sixteen-hour days between doing his work
and teaching the kid. Trying to get to where he can just snooze the rest of the
trip.”

Guo smirked. “Yeah, the Skipper knows how to push his
buttons.” He took his cookies. “Guess we should give them a try.”

They each bit into a cookie, watching each other’s
expressions. They chewed, swallowed, and simultaneously popped the remainder
into their mouths. Regular algae crackers were like wood shingles, or ceramic
tile if they were left in the oven a little too long. These were as chewy as
stiff cardboard. With sugar on top.

“It’s better than the crackers,” said Guo.

“Yeah. I don’t think I’d call them cookies though. Soft
crackers?”

“That works.” Guo bit into another.

Mitchie studied hers for a moment. “It’s better than
military emergency rations.” She bit.

“When did you eat milrats?”

“Shuttle service had picked up a bunch of them surplus. I
had to sit out a blizzard in a mountain pass for a couple of days.”

“It’d take a couple of days to make me eat one,” said Guo.

“I was still growing. Took about twelve hours to finish the
first one.”

He swallowed his third cookie. “Worst I’ve eaten besides
crackers was this fish-egg stuff.”

“Were you stranded on an island?”

“Heh. No, I was being polite. A friend on Lapis was serving
it as this special delicacy.”

“Good friend, huh?” Mitchie smirked at him.

“You could say that.”

Mitchie described some other terrible food she’d eaten. Akiak
cooking focused on not wasting edible parts instead of great taste. Guo had
more stories of his own. Finally they ran out of cookies and conversation
together.

They shared a handhold, fingers comfortably overlapping. Guo
let go of it and pulled on her wrist. His other hand grabbed her shoulder to
stop her as her lips touched his.

The kiss started gently. When her hands pulled on his back
he pressed more forcefully. Their lips parted. The sensation flooded them with
fire. Mitchie gave up her foothold and wrapped both her legs around his. Only
his left foot kept them from drifting into the room.

Mitchie could only think about the feel of his lips.
Remember,
stay focused
, said the voice in the back of her brain. Guo pulled on her
hip, pressing her belly against his.
Remember what you’re looking for.
She ran her hands along his back, exploring the muscles she’d just seen hints
of through his jumpsuit.

I don’t understand
, Mitchie thought. Her breast
tingled as he brushed the side of it.

What is your mission objective?
said the voice. Guo
shifted her whole body in the air and began kisses down the side of her neck.

There isn’t one
. Guo’s hand stroked her breast.

Why are you doing this?
His teeth closed firmly on
her earlobe.

I don’t know!
Mitchie put both hands on his chest and
pushed away. She caught onto the converter assembly and hung there shaking.

“Sorry, was that too hard?” Guo’s goofy grin drained away as
he saw her expression. “Mitchie, are you okay?”

“I’m—it’s not—fine.”

He turned his palms toward her and flexed his ankle to tilt
his whole body away from her. “Hey, I don’t want to rush you. We can take
things slow.”

“No, I—it’s that—I don’t—I never—”

“Mitchie, there’s no shame in being a virgin.”

The confusion in her face flashed to anger. “I’m not a
virgin, you idiot.” She grabbed a wrench from its bracket and flung it at him.

It hit the bulkhead between a pressure gauge and a thin
bleed line. Guo caught it in two more bounces. No damage other than chipped
paint.

Mitchie had already disappeared through the hatch. Guo
decided he should figure out what he did wrong before going after her. Which
might take a while. He was too dazzled from those wonderful kisses to think
straight.

***

Mitchie arrowed from the cargo hold hatch to her stateroom.
The group in the galley saw her fly by.

“I guess they didn’t want more cookies,” said Abdul.

Billy laughed. “I bet Guo loves the taste of
her
cookies.”

Schwartzenberger snapped, “Lock that shit up or you’re going
to have consequences.” Suddenly it was time for Abdul to learn how to inspect
container tie-downs.

When they were alone in the galley Bing said, “Those two are
developing a relationship. It could be a morale issue.”

“So?” replied Schwartzenberger. “I can’t keep that pair from
running off and murdering people. How am I supposed to make them keep their
zippers up?”

***

Mitchie locked and bolted her hatch. The “off” light on the
intercom panel was enough to let her find her bunk. She slid under the cover
and loosely closed the hip belt. A teddy bear was secured at each corner. She
pulled the largest out of its elastic sack and curled around it.

Sex isn’t just for getting restricted data out of guys
.
She tried to find an example of when she’d had sex for a different reason. Soon
she remembered Derry.

Strong, happy Derry. He planned one hitch in the Navy so
they could afford to start married life on a homestead of their own. She’d
wanted to give him a good sendoff but he was stubborn. “The Chief calls it
Opsec. I’m not allowed to tell anyone when the ship will arrive.”

So she’d wormed it out of him in the afterglow of their
first time. Derry had almost panicked when the Chief crashed the going away
party, but he’d just drunk and joked with the uncles. Great time.

After the party the Chief canceled Derry’s security
clearance. “No boring electronics bench for me,” Derry had written. “I’ll get
to work on the hull and see the stars.” Then a Fusion ship plumed BDS
Brave
and Derry came home in an urn.

Tears wouldn’t drip in free-fall. Mitchie pressed her face
into the teddy bear and let them soak its fur.

Journey Day 150. Solar System. Acceleration: 10 m/s
²

Captain Schwartzenberger leaned on the bulkhead next to the
hydroponics room hatch. As Mitchie came abreast he held a finger to his lips.
She stopped and listened to the voices in the compartment.

Abdul hadn’t done well at cleaning the growth medium
filters. “It’s just a speck,” said the apprentice.

“That speck could start rot in the next batch of algae,”
said Billy. “You have no idea how bad a ship can smell when there’s rot in the
hydroponics.”

“Is this another of those ‘small detail, big effect’ things?”

“Yes, dammit. You have to pay attention to all the little
details. Details matter. Every single thing between your lungs and vacuum is a
detail.” Mitchie cocked her head as he went on. On Shishi it was pronounced “dee-tail”
but Billy said “deh-tail” which was—she looked at the captain—a Bonaventure
accent. He had to be reciting that speech from memory. “So check all the
details. Your life is one of the ones you’ll save.”

Schwartzenberger wore the biggest smile she’d ever seen on
him. She shook her head and moved on.

Akiak, gravity 10.3 m/s
²

Pete’s new friends stated emphatically that unlike the
Fusion, Akiak’s government didn’t break into people’s homes in the middle of
the night. So the masked men hauling him out of his bed had to be crooks. By
the time he was awake enough to realize what happened they’d taped his mouth
shut and bound his hands behind his back.

They’d shouted something coming into his apartment. The word
“police” had been in it. Maybe “Don’t call the police?” The men were totally
silent as they carried him out. Their truck was black. He didn’t glimpse any
markings on it in the two meters between his front door and its cargo
compartment.

Two masked men rode with him. They had strapped Pete face
down on a bench along the side. They sat on the opposite bench, staring at him.
Or they slept bolt upright. He couldn’t tell through the masks.

The truck was wheeled. It stayed on good roads. The trip
went on for hours. Pete’s original theory was a labor theft gang. Frontier
conditions were harsh enough some owners tried slave labor. It was the top
priority of the planetary police. The most popular vid on Akiak was a
fictionalized version of anti-slavery detectives.

Pete knew the slavers on the show were exaggerated but these
silent men were just too competent to be slavers. Bounty hunters? He didn’t
think his grey-area experiments were serious enough to make the Lapis
government try to retrieve him. If someone wanted to make an example of illegal
research maybe these men did mean to take him back to the Fusion.

When the truck stopped the pair quickly hauled him into a
windowless building. Once inside they took the tape off his mouth (no pain) and
recuffed his hands in front of him. “Thank you,” said Pete. One nodded in reply.
They took him into an office.

An elderly woman sat behind a desk. “Mr. Smith. Since you
may be in protective custody for an extended period, your personal belongings
have been placed in storage. Please sign this receipt.” She slid an oversized
datasheet toward him.

Pete read the legalese at the top, then looked at the first
line of the inventory. “Socks, clean, 8; socks, dirty, 4.”

He put the datasheet back down. “So . . . you people really
are the government?”

The clerk’s face filled with disdain. Pete quickly
thumbprinted the corner of the datasheet. The guards took him down the hall to
another office. This time they sent him into the room alone and closed the
door.

A young man in a suit sat behind a desk. “Please sit down,
Mr. Smith. I’m George Alverstoke, your case officer.”

Pete sat in the chair. It was padded. He was beside the
desk, nothing between him and Alverstoke.

“I apologize for the rough treatment in bringing you here,”
said the case officer. “We needed to get you into protective custody as quickly
as possible. And keep anyone from knowing you’re in our custody. Ideally as far
as anyone knows you’ll have just vanished.” He touched the handcuffs. They
retracted into a ball which he dropped into a desk drawer.

Pete rubbed his wrists. “Who are you protecting me from?”
Alverstoke handed him a cup of water. He drained it.

“Um. How long has it been since you’ve seen a news report?”

Pete had to think. “Noon yesterday? I worked a night shift
and then went straight to bed.”

“I see.” Alverstoke took a deep breath. He decided to rip
the bandage off. “A Fusion warship dropped an atomic weapon on the town of
Noisy Water five hours ago. They intended to destroy the AI technology
conference. We’re securing every known researcher into topics forbidden by the
Fusion.”

Alverstoke kept talking. Pete stopped listening. A chill
clung to his skin. Connie, the Binary Club boys, all the real friends he had on
Akiak, they all went to the conference. His brain believed it. That’s the kind
of situation it would take for Pete to be a government kidnap target. His heart
. . . refused to accept it. They had to be alive. Words couldn’t change that.

“Are there any survivors?” he interrupted.

“I’m sorry, the valley was completely devastated. Everyone
there was in the total destruction radius.”

“Have you checked for basements? People could have sheltered
there.”

The desktop was one big datasheet. Alverstoke made a few
strokes to make it display a realtime image of Noisy Water. Pete recognized it
from the bare stone hills running to either side. They’d framed the promotional
video for the conference. The resort and village were gone, along with the
spectacular waterfall. A crater slowly filled with water. The trees on the
slopes still burned. The meadows along the brook were cold ash now.

“The Space Guard dropped a team in hardsuits to search. They
didn’t find anyone. It was just before local dawn. I’m very sorry.”

Pete moaned. A few tears fell on the desk. “Why?” he
demanded.

“We don’t know, not for sure. The Fusion’s always been
paranoid. Why now, why here, we don’t know. It might just be that there was
such a big target.”

Pete moaned again.

“So you see you’re in danger. We need to keep you safe, out
of sight. There are Fusion agents on Akiak we’ve lost track of. You could be
attacked any time you’re in public.”

“Why do you care about me? I’m nobody important. I haven’t
done any research here.”

“Your friends disagree. They’ve mentioned your assistance
several times in their discussions. Brainstorming with you is—was quite
productive for them.”

Pete sniffed.

“Then there’s your academic profile. Lapis sent your full
records with their extradition request. Very impressive.”

“They tried to extradite me?”

“For illegal research, yes.”

“Why didn’t you send me back?”

“Deploying uncontrolled software is a crime here.
Researching it is not.”

“Oh.” Pete tried to put the shock aside. “Who are you
people? Who do you work for?”

“I’m part of the Security Department. Which includes the
Space Guard, Ground Guard, some secure research facilities, the usual sneaky
types, and the clerks to keep them all paid and supplied. Which is where I fit.”

Pete held out the empty cup. Alverstoke poured some more
water into it. Pete drank then asked, “So now I’m just locked away somewhere?”

“We were hoping—well, there’s no tactful way to put this.
Our research division has a great many openings right now. We would deeply
appreciate it if you would help us rebuild our team.”

Pete stared at him, too bemused to answer.

“And if you take the job the Fusion will feel pain.”

Pete wiped the tears off his cheeks. “Then yes.”