Authors: Gregory Benford
“When the right time comes—”
Toby’s mouth warped with exasperation. “Me an’ the guys, Besen, all of us—we wanna be in on what happens.”
“You will be. Just hold back some, yeasay?”
Toby sighed and the tightness drained slowly from his face. “Dad, it’s like there’s…there’s no time anymore when we’re just…”
“Just us?”
Toby nodded, swallowing hard.
“You better ’member, I’m Cap’n now a lot more often than I’m your father.”
Toby’s jaw stiffened. “Seems you come down special hard on me lately.”
Killeen paused, tried to see if this was so. “Might be.”
“I’m just tryin’, is all.”
“So’m I,” Killeen said quietly.
“I don’t want to miss out on anythin’ when we hit ground.”
“You won’t. We’ll need everybody.”
“So don’t leave me out, just ’cause I’m…you know.”
“My son? Well, you won’t stop being that, but sometimes maybe you’ll wish you weren’t.”
“Never.”
“Don’t think you’ll get special jobs, now.”
“I won’t.”
“Son? None this changes what we are, y’know.”
“I guess.” Toby’s face seemed strained and flattened in the enameled light. “Only…it’s not like the old times.”
“When we were runnin’ for our lives? I’d say this is sure as hell better.”
“Yeah, but…well…”
“Hard times only look all right when you’re lookin’ back from good times.”
Toby’s face relaxed a fraction.“I guess.”
“Between us, time makes no difference.”
“I guess.”
Toby went back to his kickball in the spiral axis. Killeen warned them to be careful and not get in the way of crew-work,
but never considered ordering them to stop. As near as he could tell, humanity had come into being on the move, designed to
chase small game that bounded around very much like a ball, and he wasn’t about to get in the way of so basic an impulse.
It kept the crew in condition and smoothed out antagonisms, too.
But not all. As he passed a maintenance pocket he came upon a dozen Family huddled around a small fire of corn-husks and dried
cobs. Killeen disliked the sooty stains this practice left on the ship’s walls, but he understood the reassurance of a communal
fire. In dimmed light the crackling yellow tongues forked up like wild spirits, casting fluttering shadows among faces intent
with their discussion.
He expected a lot of earnest talk now; the ship echoed with chatter and hot-eyed gossip. To his surprise, this knot of idlers
included First Mate Jocelyn.
“Cap’n!” she hailed. She was a stringy, middle-aged woman with quick, canny eyes. She wore the coverall appropriate for shipwork,
free of snags and covered with zippered pockets. The sewing and metal-shaping skills of the Family had come to the fore during
the two years of voyaging
from Snowglade, giving every Family member a sturdy wardrobe fashioned from organiweave and from the fiber of plants from
the lifezone bubbles.
Killeen made a clipped half-salute, a gesture he had perfected. It carried greeting and acknowledgment, but also reminded
that he was in his official Cap’n capacity, not functioning as simply another member of the Family. He was about to move on
when Jocelyn said loudly, “We’re figurin’ on takin’ that station, yeasay?”
Killeen was stunned. “How—” he began, then stopped himself. He must not betray surprise that word of the station had gotten
around so fast. Shiptalk was legendary. ”—you mean?” he finished.
He knew that the old formalisms of Family speech dictated that he should say “
do
you mean”—long hours spent with his Aspects had made the ancient, smoother speech patterns almost second nature to him, and
he customarily used them to distance himself. But casual crewtalk might be the right approach now.
“Heard there’s a big mech place up ahead,” one of the men said slowly.
“Word gets ’round,” Killeen admitted, settling onto his haunches. This was the ageold posture the Family had adopted while
on the move, always ready to jump and move in case of surprise. Here it was meaningless, of course, but it underlined their
common past and equality. Everyone in the circle was also squatting, some clutching small bottles of flavored water. A midshipman
offered Killeen one and he took a swig: rich aromatic apricot, the fruit now flowering in the lifezones.
“Yeasay,” Jocelyn said. “We’ll be having a gathering?”
“Don’t see why,” Killeen answered carefully.
“Battle plans!” a burly crewman exclaimed loudly.
“And what battle’s that?” Killeen countered quietly.
“Why, ’gainst that mechplex,” the man said. Several grunts of agreement came from the knot.
“You sure it’s a mechplex?” Killeen asked mildly.
“What else’s it?” a deckwoman demanded.
Killeen shrugged, eyeing them closely. They seemed worked up by the prospect of an attack, faces pinched and drawn. “We’ll
see.”
“Can’t be anythin’ but human or mech,” Jocelyn said, “and it’s sure as hell not human.”
“We’ll attack no mechplex without getting its measure first,” Killeen said.
“Surprise it!” the burly man said hoarsely. Killeen suspected the man had been drinking something beyond flavored water. Indeed,
in several faces here there was a glow, a certain careless droop of lip and eye, that told him much. A clear violation of
regs. But he reckoned that this was not the best moment to challenge them. Something more was going on and he needed to find
out what.
“Coming at it from an empty sky—that’s a surprise?” He chuckled.
“We killed the mechs aboard here!” the man countered.
“We had
real
surprise then. They weren’t ready for an assault at liftoff. We had that one chance, sweep the ship clean, and we took it.”
Killeen shook his head. “Won’t get that chance again.”
This seemed to silence most of them; there had been restless mutterings around the circle for the last few moments. Killeen
still could not see where these ideas had come from. For some time now he had watched the Family acquire the usual bad habits
of an outdoor folk forced to live too long in cramped quarters: drinking, stimwires, gambling, random pointless quarrels.
Beyond those infractions, which he could deal with in the usual ways, there had gradually risen a harder problem.
They regaled one another with gaudy tales of past battles, grand adventures bloated beyond recognition. Killeen himself could
recall all too clearly those years spent on the run across Snowglade—his frequent chilling fear, the sickening indecision,
the many scrambling retreats from humbling defeats. Now, as the tales had it, everyone (but usually most notably the narrator)
had been valiant, savvy, quick, and steadfast, a dreaded scourge of mechs.
But there was something more than empty bravado here. He watched the snapping flames, smoke licking at his eyes with a sting
he almost welcomed. The sooty tang brought forth innumerable memories of hard nights spent peering dejectedly into guttering
campfires, fearing every odd sound that came ringing out of the darkness. The corncobs gave off a sweeter taste than the bite
of woodsmoke, but the gathering pall did encase this nook in a comforting blue fog, a momentary signature of their mutual
dependence.
He felt a restive mood building and kept his silence, letting it grow. Finally Jocelyn edgily broke the silence with, “Near
as I ’member, Fanny said that we should never leave a mechplex at our back when we’re advancin’.”
Heads nodded all around the circle. Killeen sipped thick apricot nectar to cover his surprise. So it was Jocelyn talking up
these ideas, harking back to the old Cap’n, Fanny. Though Fanny had been dead years now, cut down back on Snowglade by the
Mantis, she still exerted a profound influence in the Family. Killeen himself had respected and loved her beyond saying. Innumerable
times, during their long voyage, he had asked himself,
What would Fanny do now?
and the answer had guided him.
But this was different. Jocelyn was using Fanny’s legend to sow trouble among the crew.
“She also said, don’t take on enemies you don’t need.”
Killeen looked deliberately around, locking eyes with each of the crew in turn. “And ’specially when they’re bigger’n you.”
Some murmuring agreement welcomed this. Jocelyn didn’t look directly at Killeen, but said, “If we can’t take a station, how’ll
we do with that whole damn planet?”
Killeen knew he had to be careful here. There was a tense expectation in the air, as if Jocelyn had summed up what they all
felt. This was a Family talk, and she had kept it just beyond the strictures of ship discipline. He could cut off Jocelyn
right now, show his anger, but that would leave unanswered questions, and irritations among the crew. He decided to not invoke
his rank. Instead, he laughed.
Jocelyn had not expected that. His dry chuckle startled her.
Then he said with a halfsmile, “That’s your killer-Aspect talkin’ again, right?” He turned to the rest. “Jocelyn now, she’s
loaded in five new Aspect chips in just the last year. One’s a Cap’n who specialized in leadin’ charges ’gainst the mechs—just
’bout the only maneuver he knew, I’d guess, ’cause he sure didn’t live long. That Aspect gives great advice, he does—only
it’s always the same.”
Several around the circle smiled. Granted, the Family would never have survived this voyage without the Aspects’ vast hoard
of advice on the ancient human tech which had built the
Argo
. But their hovering presences perpetually yearned to be tapped more fully into their host’s sensory net, to gobble hungrily
of the very air and zest that life brought. Aspects could never be truly content. They came from many eras and their advice
often conflicted. Occasionally one dominated its host’s thinking. Letting an Aspect get out of control was humiliating.
Muscles bunched in Jocelyn’s long jaw. “I speak for my
self
, not for some dusty Aspect,” she spat out.
“Then you should avoid fights when you can.” Killeen kept his voice wry and friendly.
She said sharply, “Like this one?”
So she had gotten the hint and still chose to make this public. Very well. “Now that you mention it…”
“Some of us think Family honor demands—”
“Honor’s the first thing that falls on a battlefield,” Killeen said dryly.
He immediately regretted having interrupted her, because Jocelyn’s eyes narrowed angrily. “We should take that mechplex ’fore
it attacks us.”
“Our target’s a world, not a tin box in space,” Killeen said easily. He knew he would come out ahead if he let her lose her
temper.
“With that in our hands, we can control what reaches the surface!” she said excitedly.
“And alert whatever’s on the surface before we can land the
Argo
,” he said.
“Well, Fanny would never—”
“Lieutenant Jocelyn, belay that Fanny stuff.
I
’m Cap’n now.”
She looked startled. He had always thought that she was best at following a planned tactic. She fumbled when time came for
fast footwork and a shift of attack. “Uh, aye-aye, but—”
“And I say we’re going straight in. Got that? We’ll skip the station.”
“Damnall, that station’ll give us—”
—Cap’n!—
The call came not from the circle but from Killeen’s own belt. He was startled at the tinny voice that spoke from his waist:
Shibo.
“Yeasay,” he answered. Abruptly he lost interest in Jocelyn. Shibo seldom called on ship comm. For her to do so meant something
important.
—The board—Shibo began, but Killeen cut the switch. He never allowed crew to overhear officers’ messages unless he wanted
to leak something deliberately.
He got up, nodded briskly at Jocelyn, and set off up the spiral to the control vault. He disliked leaving his dispute with
Jocelyn hanging. He had blunted her momentum, but left a core of resistance in her still. And ambition, as well.
When he came through the hatch, Shibo was standing with uncharacteristic immobility, meditative: her arms wrapped around herself,
thumbs hooked into her shiny black exskell ribs. Normally her hands would be moving restlessly over the boards, summoning
forth the
Argo
’s energies and microminds.
“Cap’n, I have a problem. New kind, too.” Her luminous eyes and chagrined mouth could not conceal her alarm.
“Is it the station?”
“In a way.” Her exskell shifted like a cage of black bones, framing her gesture: something halfway between a shrug and a vexed
wave of dismissal. “The board is frozen. I can’t dictate trajectory anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Some override command.”
“From where?”
“Maybe ‘From when?’ is the right question.”
“The Mantis?”
“Could be. It’s taking us on a slightly different tack from planetary rendezvous.”
“You can’t countermand it?”
“No.”
When Shibo admitted defeat he was sure she had struggled
with the problem to her limits. He frowned. “Where are we going?”
“Toward that station. Against our will.”
Deep bass moans ran the length of
Argo
, like the songs of great swollen beasts.
The dust outside hummed and rubbed against the life-zone bubbles as the ship decelerated. It was as though the thin flotsam
of the Galactic Center, spiraling in toward the shrouded star ahead, played the
Argo
like a great taut instrument. Melodies of red lightning danced about the burnished bow.
Killeen watched the approach of the station. He stood with his back to the assembling crew and peered through the forward
port. Their trajectory ahead was clear.
Argo
was coming down to fly parallel to the station’s great circular plain, skimmed along it by unseen forces. Shibo could do
nothing with
Argo’
s helm.
He allowed himself a smile of self-derision. His proud show of decisiveness had come to nothing. Jocelyn’s cagey—and insubordinate—egging
on of the crew, and her public disagreement, had angered him. She had taken advantage of the Family context to attack his
piloting decisions. Now, ironically, her whetting of appetites for action served his purposes.