Contact Imminent (11 page)

Micah's heart skittered. He hated the fact that Pascal knew his name. “I ran the imager for a V-790 presentation a few weeks ago. It looked interesting.”

“The engineers took too many shortcuts in the environmental controls, and diverted power to movement and weapons systems.” Pascal's voice sounded tight. “They feel that if you can run away from it or shoot it, you don't need to protect against it. Not sound, in my opinion. But no one asked me.”

“No, sir. I mean, yes, sir.” Micah ducked into the conference room ahead of Pascal and headed straight for the combooth in the far corner. Flicked the switches he had to, then ran a systems check. Emerged from the booth. “Should be good to go now, sir.” Made for the door, conscious as a hunted beast of the gaze that tracked him until he left the room and emerged into the safety of the hallway.

“Jerk.” So no one asked the great captain's advice on the design of the V-790? Well, soon a lowly lance corporal would know more about it than he would, and wouldn't that be a great feeling? The thought made Micah smile, until the memory of those dead brown eyes eyes boring holes in his back wiped it away.

“I'm a colonial, too, Jan, a point you seem all too willing to overlook.” Niall walked the edge of the exercise mat as though it were a tightrope, heel-to-toe-to-heel, arms held out to the sides for balance. “And when it comes to the Jewelers Loop gross domestic product rankings, Victoria is the poorest of poor relations. I understand deprivation. I learned all about having to make do with the dregs while others with more clout got the cream.” He wore summer base casuals—grey T-shirt, dark blue shorts, and white trainers—and seemed well-met with the ship's small gymnasium. His arms looked hewn from wood, his legs muscular and still faintly tanned despite five weeks spent under ship lighting. “Just because Elyas and the other Outer Circle worlds can't get chocolate sauce for their sponge cake is no reason for them to allow the Haárin to take over their damned shipping networks.”

Jani sat on the far end of the mat and watched Niall totter and turn. “The issue that brought all this to a head last fall involved something a little more serious than chocolate sauce. As I recall, the quality of Karistos's water was at stake.” She crossed her trousered legs at the ankle. She wore a long-sleeve pullover as well, topped with a heavy crew
sweater in a jewel shade of purple, their ship name,
DENALI
, etched across the front in silver. “You insist on trivializing the fact that the colonies have been chronically undersup-plied for decades, at times to the point of crisis.”

“I don't trivialize it!” Niall halted in mid-wobble and stepped to the middle of the mat. “The Families screwed up. They didn't think past the ends of their credit balances. A few of them behaved in a remarkably stupid manner. Well guess what? They're finally waking up. The great beast is blinking and looking around and sees reason for concern.”

“For its credit balance.”

“For its security.”

Jani worked to her feet and walked to the games rack, which had been bolted to the far wall. “If Cao and her cronies want to win back the confidence of the Outer Circle Merchants Associations, their task is simple.” She took a wooden martial-arts sword from one of the slots and swung it back and forth like one of Dathim's practice blades. “Let them revamp the Commerce and Transportation ministries. They've cleared the wharf rats from a few docks—let them keep going. Let them divest themselves of the shipping companies that they own to eliminate any nasty little conflicts of interest, and let the new owners win business in the competitive arena, not take it as something they're owed.” She stilled, then began to shift her weight from side to side, knees bent, guiding the blade in a slow sweep before her.

Niall tracked the end of the blade as if it were the head of a snake. “Dathim teach you that?”

“He told me that my old bones require a gradual progression of movement. In other words, I need to warm up.” Jani smiled. “He's older than I am and he needs to warm up even longer, but that's different, of course. He is the teacher and I am the student, and his is a life pure and free from contradiction and pulled muscles.”

Niall watched her for a time. Then he walked to a bench set against the far wall, beneath which he'd stashed his gym bag.
“I'll say this, you're getting better at changing the subject. You even managed to get the last word in the bargain.” He dragged the bag atop the bench and scrabbled through it, removing a short-handled racket and a hand towel. “We've had the same discussion in different forms since we boarded this bucket at Luna. Why don't we call it a draw and be done with it? You won't change my mind, and I won't change yours.”

Jani stopped in mid-arc, then drew the blade to a neutral stop against her right shoulder. “You're angry.”

“Resigned, more like. Returning to the role of concerned observer with a heavy sigh.” Niall began his own warm-up, rotating his wrists, then flicking the racket back and forth. “You talk a very good game. But you play it, as well, and have the scars to prove it. Proof for the doubting Thomases. You possess a hefty share of credibility.” He offered a sad half smile, twisted into a smirk by his scar. “And you've got this revolutionary gloss that's difficult for we more boring souls to ignore.”

Jani rolled her eyes. “I'm not a revolutionary. I'm not—”

“Jan, if you tell me you're not political, I'm going to clout you across the back of the head.” Niall pivoted from side to side. Forehand. Backhand. “You're about as political as they get, whether you choose to believe it or not.”

“My political options dwindled to nothing when the ministries shut me out. I'm a priest-in-training now.” Jani walked back to the rack and slid the blade back into its niche. “I don't understand how you can defend the Commonwealth as you do. It certainly hasn't treated you much better than it has me.”

“I believe in the ideal, if not always the execution. Then there's the colony kid in me—I hate waste. If a system is flawed, you repair it. You don't turn your back on it.” Niall's back and forth slowed. “Unless you want it to continue to devolve so that you have a knee-jerk justification for doing something that you know you shouldn't be doing in the first place.”

Jani waited for Niall to stop, to shoot a pointed look in her direction, but he continued his warm-up as though she wasn't in the room.
You bastard—you don't even have to check to see if you hit the target, do you?
But then, he'd hit it back in Chicago, where he'd first attached himself to her like a second shadow—it was just a case now of gathering the details.
Which I've managed to keep from him
. But they would dock at Elyas Station the next ship-day. At that point all bets were off. He'd find out about the hybrid, real or faked. About Feyó's problems with her Haárin. And he'd transmit it all back to Chicago, for Mako to take to Cao on a silver platter, the peace offering found just in time to save his Admiral-Generalcy.

“Good morning.”

Jani turned toward the gym entry to find John standing there, smile fixed in place as he looked from her to Niall and back again. “I've interrupted another political argument. I can tell.” He had dressed as Niall had, in shorts, T-shirt, and trainers, but any resemblance ended there. He had chosen white and pale blue for his outfit, colors that matched his skin and the veins that ran beneath. He was taller and lankier than Niall, and looked as though he might break in a stiff wind until you saw how the muscles of his forearm bunched and defined when he clenched the handle of his gym bag.

“You'd think that after five weeks cooped up together, you two would have hashed everything out.” He exhaled with a rumble. “I guess not.” He strode toward them, the soles of his trainers squeaking on the coated flooring. He skirted the edge of the mat and tossed his bag atop the bench next to Niall's. Then he dug out a racket and a dispo of balls, popping the container lid and shaking one out so it bounced toward Niall. “Odds or evens?”

“Odds.” Niall plucked the ball out the air, then turned it so he could read the vendor mark. “Serial number ends in five. My serve.”

John swung his racket in a relaxed arc. “It's a little late in the trip to say this, Jan, but I'd appreciate it if you didn't rile
the colonel before our matches.” He tried to sound humorous, but a warning glint hardened his blue-filmed gaze. “He tends to take it out on me in an annoyingly predictable manner.”

“He means that I whip his ass.” Niall jerked his chin in the direction of the door that led to the ballcourt. “After you, Doctor.”

“Colonel.”

Jani lagged behind the two men as they walked to the ballcourt entry, listening to their banter. It sounded good-natured enough on the surface, but she had sensed their mutual dislike bubble to the surface more than once over the course of the trip, especially when John perceived that she and Niall had argued.
John never liked him, and now he doesn't trust him
. If trust stemmed from knowing exactly what a person would do in a given situation, however, Jani trusted Niall completely.
He'll do what he perceives is his duty
. Just as she said he would back in Chicago.
And so will I
. Just as he said she would.
We know one another too well
. Trust, therefore, was absolute on both sides.
Pull the other one, Kilian, it sings “Oh, Acadia.”
She settled in front of the observation window and waited for the game to begin.

After a few minutes of warm-up, the men moved into position. Niall bounced the ball off the floor and struck it, his racket hand a blur. Behind him, John lunged for the rebound as best he could, but it sailed past him, striking the window with a solid
thuck
. He took advantage of his location to glare at Jani. She shrugged an apology.

“One to the server,” Niall announced, grinning. His good mood vanished, however, when John won the next exchange and claimed serve.

Go, John.
Jani pumped a fist below the level of the windowsill and braced for John's serve until a movement in her periphery claimed her attention. She looked to the side and found one of the
Denali
comtechs standing there, professionally sharp in a coverall of the same rich purple as her sweater.

“Transmission for you, ma'am,” the young woman said. “From Elyas.”

 

“Thanks.” Jani settled into the combooth seat, then nodded for the tech to shut her in. As the door closed, the lighting in the booth dimmed to half power. The display, meanwhile, brightened with a series of vendor logos, followed by a warning of the awful fate that would befall any unauthorized viewers of the message about to play.

“How about the authorized viewer?” Jani grew conscious of her sweaty palms, and wiped them against her trouser legs.

The display image stuttered for a few seconds as idomeni and humanish technologies collided. Then a face that had grown more and more familiar since the autumn took shape. A high-boned oval, the paler gold-tan of the Sìah, graced by dark grey eyes softened by silvery sclera.

“Glories of the day to you, ná Kièrshia.” Ná Feyó Tal, dominant of the Elyan Haárin, spoke lightly accented English, and appeared as relaxed and comfortable as she usually did during transmissions. She wore her grey-streaked brown hair drawn back in her usual humanish-style horse-tail. Her visible clothing was simple in cut and pale in color, an open-necked crossover shirt in the light green shade she favored. “We anticipate your visit. I look forward and truly to news of ní Tsecha.” She had angled her face so she would look Jani in the eye if they sat in the same room, an attention to detail that many Haárin overlooked and bornsect eschewed on principle. “I trust your journey proved most pleasant, and that you anticipate our reunion as much as I.”

“Glories of the day to you as well, ná Feyó.” Jani sat back, folding her arms so she could tuck her hands up the sleeves of her sweater. “Ní Tsecha sends his regards as well, and wishes he could have made this journey himself.”

Feyó's lips curved in a vague almost-smile, which on a human female would have been considered enigmatic. “I most wish he could have as well.” She lowered her gaze for
a time. When she raised it again, the clear-eyed reserve had returned. “Tomorrow, ná Kièrshia. It would be most appropriate, I believe and truly, if one of my shuttles docked with the
Denali
, and if we took you off thusly and I escorted you to Karistos myself. If you could consult with your ship's engineer and tell me if docking arrangements are possible? I may transmit to you all the information needed for this determination.”

Jani studied Feyó's image for any sign of tension. The transmission was taking place in real-time, with minimal smoothing of any delays. Was it an instrument hiccup that made for the tightening around the Haárin female's mouth, the furrow between her eyes? Or had the worry that she'd so far managed to hide finally broken the surface? “What's wrong with meeting at Elyas Station?”

“The station is most crowded, the humanish docks especially. Transfer to the Haárin side of the station is not always smooth.” Feyó waved a hand in a meaningless gesture. “We would have more of a chance to talk. Of ní Tsecha, and the damned cold winter of which he complains.”

Chatter like a couple of old, dear friends? Catch up on old times?
Jani waited for Feyó to give her some hint, and knew she could sit there all day.
She wants me under her control as quickly as possible
. “I will get the engineer, ná Feyó.” She pressed the alarm touchpad and summoned the comtech.

The next half hour passed in a flurry of discussion and data transmission. Feyó called in one of her technical dominants to speak to the Haárin side of the docking equation. Jani wedged into a corner of the booth and watched the universal language of headshakes, mutters, and mathematics, but in the end the conclusion was what she expected. The designs of the ships were too different, and the time too short. A straightforward junction wasn't possible, and a retrofit inside twenty-four hours out of the question.

“Ná Feyó.” Jani returned to her seat after the engineer departed. “What is going on?”

Feyó raised her right hand, palm facing out, and rested it against her left cheek. That fallback to a High Sìah expression of confusion told more about her state of mind than any words could. “I know little. I suspect much.”

“You believe someone will try to get to me before you do. At Elyas Station, or on the ground in Karistos.”

“We have heard rumors. We have learned over the months of the need to listen to such.”

“Ní Tsecha believes that your dominance has been challenged. Is your challenger the one who wants to get hold of me?”

Feyó's hand dropped, the sound of her sharp intake of breath gasping through the speaker system. Then the tension left her like a drawn-out sigh. “When we spoke in Chicago, ní Tsecha told me how necessary it became for him to learn to read between humanish lines. He explained to me how such is to be done.” Again, the High Sìah gesture of confusion. “It seems, and truly, that he has learned to read between my lines as well, for I told him nothing of any challenge.”