The Myriad: Tour of the Merrimack #1 (14 page)

“I think Lieutenant Colonel Steele is having trouble keeping hold of his troops.”

“Something
useful,
Augustus?”

“All holes in the ground are not trapdoors.”

John Farragut blinked, not making the connection. “What does that mean?”

“Means whatever got you wasn’t necessarily meant for you.”

“It
got
us.”

“So did Donner’s minefield. The minefield wasn’t meant for you either. Your self-absorbed attitude leads you to interpret everything in terms of self. Your flight’s disappearance has nothing to do with you.”

“It’s
my
flight,” Steele jerked the Roman’s attention back to him.

“But only for another few hours,” said Augustus evenly. “I looked into the Swifts’ checkout logs. They’re carrying supplies for a short patrol. Their oxygen is running out right now. Dakota Shepard is an air sucker. He’s already out. The women might last two more hours. After that, they’re the sky pilot’s flight.”

Sprung from sick bay, Kerry Blue reported for duty. Lieutenant Colonel Steele told her to find a streetlight and stand under it.

He must have seen the pride fall right out of her face. Disappointment sogged down her insides. She thought the world of this man, and he said
that
to her? She tried to project her thoughts in case he could read her mind:
How dare you? How frogging dare you?

And she must’ve got through somehow, because Steele said next, “For the next five seconds I’m not your CO.”

She had heard about these moments—the colonel’s brief windows of opportunity. They came once in a blue moon. He did it to level the playing field when he stepped on someone’s tail and couldn’t take it back.

Cowboy talked often of what he would do given the chance. If Steele ever told him he had two seconds, Cowboy Carver would piss on Steele’s leg. Dakota tried to tell him two seconds wasn’t enough time to whip out and launch a pee. Kerry remembered saying, “I don’t know, Dak, Cowboy’s real fast with that thing.”

The point would remain forever moot. Colonel Steele never gave Cowboy any magic seconds. These opportunities were rare. And when they come, you better not blink, because they don’t wait and they don’t come back.

Kerry didn’t hesitate. She clopped him hard on the cheek. And with a second to spare, hit him again.

The second one startled him.

The end of five seconds brought Kerry to stiff, decorous attention. “Thank you, sir.”

Steele rubbed his square jaw. “I gave you too long.”

“Yes,
sir!
” Kerry wanted to jump up and down. Got him! Got him!

Thought she might have spied a hint of humor in the colonel’s ice-blue eye as he barked at her, “Dismissed!”

Kerry danced back to the forecastle. Ha! Got him! Got him! Couldn’t wait to tell Reg.

No Reg.

“Where’s Reg?”

Lots of eyes focused on anything but her. This was bad. This was real bad. “Where’s Reg?” Heard the wobble in her voice. Dread squeezed her chest.

She ran to the pod racks. Banged on the men’s partition. “Dak? Dak!
Dak!
”

Grabbed the first spaceman to cross her path—physically grabbed him by the front of the tunic and made him face her. “Where is my team!”

And wouldn’t you know it, she had a baby-faced cherry in her fist. Didn’t look old enough to drink. Held a rate above hers. He cowered as if Flight Sergeant Kerry Blue were a fire-breathing general. “Yes, um, I think I heard something about one of the Marine squadrons being, um, somewhat . . . overdue?”

Alice, when she fell down the rabbit hole, had company. An odd collection of chatty things. There was absolutely nothing here.

No sense of motion. And that was possibly the hardest part. If Reg at least had the feeling of going somewhere, then she might hold out the hope that she might at length
arrive.

She was going no place but mad.

Crying hysterically had helped a little. Very little. For a time.

Too frightened to sleep, she was now exhausted on top of terrified. Imagining things. At the limit of hope, patience, discipline, all of it. She broke the lockout from the res pulse transmitter. Hesitated over the forbidden button.

She had been told over and over, don’t hit the res, no matter what. It will bring hungry gorgons.

She took a big breath and yelled: “Come and get it!” Brought her palm down flat on the button. She hadn’t even coded a message. Just shot off a res pulse like a flare.

She would be brought up on charges, if she lived. Leavenworth looked like paradise from here. They couldn’t do anything worse to her than this.

She slumped back in her seat, relaxed and relieved enough to try to sleep. Until she glanced over the readouts. Something was desperately wrong.

She wasn’t resonating.

She mashed the button again.

It resonated to the bounds of her force field, and not one step beyond. As if the universe ended at her hull.

Nothing out there. No when. No where. This, this nothingness, this did not exist.

Coffined in hopeless horror, too extreme for screaming or tears. Her last resort had failed.

And that answered that.

She was in hell.

7

T
HE SHIP’S CHRONOMETERS WOUND UP the days, and still
Merrimack
haunted the Myriad. Captain Farragut refused to believe his missing Marines were dead. Believed against all sense or fact that they yet lived somehow, though everyone else, even Lieutenant Colonel Steele, now hoped only to recover the bodies.

He wished he might have used drones instead of live patrols. But without resonance and without human discretion, drones were useless for long-range reconnaissance when the operator could not tell the drones exactly what to look for.

The LEN wanted the U.S. battleship gone from Myriadian space. Wanted them gone yesterday, convinced that Donner would be easier to talk to without
Merrimack
lurking in orbit. Convinced that Farragut was holding a gun to the Archon’s head.

Fed up with the stalling, Ambassador Aghani demanded Farragut inform the LEN of his estimated time of departure. Captain Farragut could not confess that he had a problem. Not to these people. A missing flight was military confidential.

And telling the LEN that he had since dispatched a second flight would torque them off pretty good. Farragut did not want to recall Echo Flight from its surveillance of the Rea-bound Arran ship. He still harbored hopes of uncovering the Myriadian secret of interstellar travel. But he had run out of time.

Aghani repeated the demand. “Captain?”

Farragut inhaled long, a three-second stall in which answers might come to him—and smiled brightly at the end of it.

Captain Farragut invited the LEN diplomats to dinner.

Like Atalanta’s golden apples, a social obligation was a thing the LEN dignitaries could not just run past. They must—must—stop and be civilized. Representatives of the League of Earth Nations held hospitality sacred, especially out here where life was so fragile and tenuous. At any rate, they could not afford to be brusque in comparison to the American military.

Aghani accepted.

The last dogwatch arrived with still no sign of Alpha Flight and no report from Echo Flight. Farragut murmured, awaiting his guests’ arrival at the soft dock, “I’m running out of ideas here.”

“Eat slow,” said Augustus.

The officers’ mess had been transformed into something approaching elegant. That
Merrimack
was a long-range vessel was no excuse for barbarism. Some thought a formal dinner was high silliness, but John Farragut could play it, could play any situation as it came. Could throw back shooters or savor a Chateau d’Argent with equal ease. Could listen to cellos or harmonicas (though he could, and did, play the harmonica). So he was altogether at home amid the pressed linen, the gold-plated cutlery, the snowy white china edged in gold leaf and navy-blue enamel. Dressed in starched whites and blindingly bright brass, he welcomed the ambassadors to his table.

Augustus was dressed in formal Roman black of sedate design except for the brilliant red flourish across his back—either a wide sash or a narrow cape—draped from left shoulder to right hip. Augustus watched the captain launch his full arsenal of charm, treating the LEN to the full Farragut—greeting each guest in his own language without use of a language module. John Farragut knew bits of many languages, usually massacred the accent, but most people appreciated the effort spent in trying.

The conviviality did not endure past the appetizers. The conversation at the captain’s table quickly took on the dimensions of a battlefield.

Though English was the lingua franca of the League, the League members resented it and seized every opportunity to speak
anything
else. Aghani used Augustus’ presence as an excuse to commandeer the conversation into Latin.

The language of Earth’s sometime enemy never lost its educated cachet. Aghani spoke Latin flawlessly. The U.S. officers fell into step, until Madame Navarro thought to check, in English, “We
do
all know Latin here?”

Eyes flicked round the table, Madame Navarro’s quite sincerely concerned. Others searched expectantly for a confession of ignorance from one of the Yanks.

And got it. “No,” John Farragut answered quickly.

But since Farragut obviously did know Latin, he obviously covered for someone else. Would not say who. John Farragut, as usual, drew all the fire upon himself. He bluffed, “I’ve been told I’m really bad at it and I’ve been ordered not to try.” Then proposed cheerily: “English, why don’t we?” And smiled at everyone.

TR Steele avoided his gaze, sat like a stone.

Augustus withheld a smirk. Silently toasted the captain’s smooth flanking maneuver, protecting the dignity of his poorly educated jarhead.

There was no such thing as a classless society. Certainly not on a military spaceship. Captain Farragut might as well be king here. Might as well be God. And TR Steele was a grunt.

Built like a brick wall, broad-shouldered, thick-jawed, CO of the half-brig of Fleet Marines on board, TR Steele was not a picture of refinement—and this book was true to its cover. Steele had come up through the ranks starting as a private, his education all remedial and done late. Physical courage and horse sense he had, with medals to prove it, but no Latin.

The flattop made a stiff, solemn presence at the captain’s table. Would not, even when invited, call Captain Farragut “John.” Probably fearless in the face of a gorgon horde, Steele seemed daunted by the dizzying forest of stemware at his place setting. Fortunately, he need only drink from all those glasses, not know how to fill them appropriately. And there were no kantiku glasses, so he needn’t worry about when to throw it.

Now the utensils, those could be entertaining. Augustus could tell Steele had never seen a bariki hook in his life, or the cracker for the Cassiopeian conch, or the Nisarian skewers for the flaming munsrit.

Augustus wondered if he could get Steele to use the bariki hook to retrieve the creamer from across the table.

Probably not. Someone would rescue him. Either Farragut or Jose Maria Cordillera, who was seated to Augustus’ right—perhaps placed there purposely to head off just such an endeavor.

Jose Maria Cordillera did belong here. Dr. Jose Maria Rafael Meridia de Cordillera was Terra Rican aristocracy.

Terra Rica, a former colony of Spain, was on cordial terms with its mother country, and at war with no one. Jose Maria Cordillera owned roughly one-twenty-fourth of the dry land of that planet.

Urbane. Soft-spoken. Humanitarian, with a strong sense of noblesse oblige. Jose Maria was strikingly handsome at age fifty-seven. His olive-toned skin was still supple over sharply sculpted bones. A man of medicine, he disapproved of cosmetic surgery except in the case of wounds, and did not always endorse it even then. Jose Maria Cordillera bore a scar on his brow, got it when his firstborn bashed him in the eye with her silver mug. You could not pay Jose Maria to repair that one.

Jose Maria Cordillera kept the common touch. A nice man. A good man. Augustus found it easy to read what made
Don
Cordillera tick. Jose Maria Cordillera carried a Catholic burden of guilt. He had dedicated himself to saving a universe which had been altogether too good to him.

The LEN rolled themselves out for
Don
Cordillera to walk on. It was
such
an honor to meet him. They were only surprised to find a man of his caliber and refinement on, well, on the
Merrimack
, no offense, Captain Farragut.

“Where else should I be?” Jose Maria Cordillera asked.

The ambassadors would not say so at the captain’s own table, but military and intelligence were antonyms in their lexicon. And “Department of Defense” was just too disingenuous. The U.S. ought to call it what it was, the Department of War.

“I like to stay on the front line of discovery,” Cordillera explained.
Merrimack
operated on the frontier.

“More like the firing line, I would say,” Aghani offered.

“Often,” Cordillera admitted. “A doctor is a good thing to have in those circumstances, you do not think?”

The LEN were appalled. “A doctor? They need a medic with a patch kit and a vat of penicillin. You . . .
you, Don
Cordillera, are a research
legend.
”

“A legend. Well.” Cordillera smiled into his Riesling.

“Your work with viruses was pivotal,” said Madame Navarro. “You have saved millions of lives. And if you count posterity, countless lives.”

“And I see the Hive as a disease of galactic proportion,”
Don
Cordillera continued on that line. “A parasite. A very bad parasite that kills its host, its host being worlds. I am dedicated to curing it.”

Aghani went rigid, chilled. He set his fork down with unsteady care before he should drop it. “You would
cure
an intelligence? Do we not have a duty to communicate with it?”

The smack of the captain’s palm on the table made all the guests flinch back from their rattling china and rippling wine.

Farragut glanced round with a sheepish grin. Lifted his hand from the table, a squashed ant flattened to his palm heel. “Sorry. I was . . . communicating.”

“Ants on a starship!” Faustino Barron exclaimed, eyeing his food with sudden distaste. An excessively prissy man. Probably should not have seated that one next to Colonel Steele.

“Time to let the aardvark out,” Farragut noted to the Marine orderly. Wiped his communiqué on the linen napkin in his lap, then waggled his fork. “Didn’t mean to interrupt. Carry on.”

The window dressing, strategically stationed next to John Farragut, suddenly gushed in breathy admiration, “How ever did you discover three—three—Class Nine worlds!” Her enthusiasm may even have been sincere. Farragut was a fine looking man, especially in uniform. “That
can’t
have been luck.”

“Of course it was luck!” Farragut laughed. “Blind, stupid, crash-flat-into-it luck. We were looking for the Hive world.”

“Oh, but aren’t you afraid you’ll
find
it?”

“Afraid? Ma’am, that’s what we’re here for. We’re hunting the Hive.”

The picturesque one folded her forearms on the edge of the table, and leaned forward to rest her breasts on them. Putting all her cards on the table, apparently. She breathed, “Isn’t it . . . terrifying?”

As he composed an answer, Farragut’s blue eyes took on a gleam that Augustus had never seen before, a look that made Augustus set aside his own drink and observe. An amazing look, a bright, insane enthusiasm. And it was not directed at the young lady either. (Had to wonder about her. For a people who expressed such disapproval of Kerry Blue’s Mata Hari type espionage, this was an interesting choice of guests to send to the captain’s right hand. It was safe to assume her esteemed rank was very lately acquired, and very temporary.)

Farragut’s bright eyes were not for her. He was envisioning the Hive. And that look was . . . battle crazy. It washed over his face, animated his whole being. Battle was a topic he could get excited about.

And then he reined it in just as quickly. Wrong audience here. These people would not appreciate John Farragut’s idea of fun.

The captain forced his enthusiasm back to room temperature, and answered benignly, “I kind of hope the Hive thinks
I’m
a little scary.”

Aghani seized on that thought. “The Hive thinks. The Hive
thinks
. You admit the Hive thinks? Are we not then duty bound to make them understand us?”

Don
Cordillera came to the captain’s rescue. “ ‘Thinking’ is too strong a term. They react. As one-celled beings to light and heat. The components of the Hive have only the most rudimentary interaction with those not of its own kind—or those not of its own self, for we hypothesize that the Hive is a single, titanic, marauding entity composed of many macroscopic cells.”

Farragut further interpreted for the LEN, “ ‘Rudimentary interaction’ in Hive-talk means if it’s not me, I eat it.”

“Not entirely accurate, young Captain,” said
Don
Cordillera. “Burrs, gorgons, soldiers—all the Hive cells—have shown cannibalism. So, more precisely: ‘If it is not I, I eat it. If it is I, I may go ahead and eat it anyway. ’ ” And to the LEN, earnestly, “These beings—this being—the Hive is wholly without redemption. When I came out here, I assumed all spacefaring life would be inquisitive and benign and eager to talk. And now I find myself committed to nothing less than genocide. If I find the queen of the Hive, or the nerve center of the being, the single being the murder of which would exterminate the whole, would I do it? I ask myself: could I? And I must answer—yes. In a heartbeat.”

“Even if they adapt quickly and might eventually be taught to share?” Madame Navarro begged for reason.

“Burrs don’t share,” said Farragut.

“They learn,” said Navarro. “They could learn.”

“They learn that engineered metal—though itself inedible—often indicates that edible beings live inside,” said Jose Maria. “They learn that inedible metal spacecraft point the way to and from worlds full of edible beings.

“Adapt they can, but only if it lets them eat—and eat
now
. They store nothing. They plant nothing. They eat their dead and wounded. They are an engine of entropy.

“They have no higher conscious purpose. They have not the least concept of planning or investing. You would think something that voracious would learn husbandry, conservation. They have not.

“The Hive kills host after host. If ever it asked a question, it would be: what is left to eat? It uses, it throws away. And would you even
want
to teach gorgons husbandry, so that they might plant people gardens for future harvest?

“Do remember: entropy is a force of nature, too. What is natural need not be benign. The Hive is nothing less than the living, eating incarnation of the Ninth Level of Hell. Your Excellency, you come in peace and I admire that purpose. I am afraid I come to exterminate.”

“Deal me in,” Lieutenant Colonel Steele spoke for the first time.

Farragut lifted a finger to say he wanted a piece of that game.