"You left me your egg collection," she said at last.
"Yes."
"It was my first hint you'd been sent to Melaquin."
"And that's why you're here?"
"I suppose so," she nodded. "I got to thinking…" Her voice trailed off.
"You remembered you were once an Explorer," I said. "That you once looked like me and were marooned here too. So you came to rescue me?"
"I don't know what I came to do," she answered. "I came… I came to see. The city. I didn't know anyone was here. Our sensors picked up the starship launch; I thought everyone would be gone," She paused. "The High Council would have a collective attack of apoplexy if they knew I was here."
"And you wouldn't dare risk their displeasure," I said, "or they'd send you back here. Like they sent Chee. Did you know about that?"
"I heard what happened to Chee after the fact. Exiling you here with Chee… possibly the council thought that would send me a message."
"That's all we were? A message for you?"
She shook her head. "Chee was always a thorn in their side. That spy network of his — rubbing their nose in the incompetence of the bureaucracy. The smart councillors knew they needed him, but the ones who just liked wielding power… Some people hate interference, even when it saves their asses. Eventually, they caught Chee with his guard down, and away he went."
"Away he went," I repeated. "I watched him die."
Admiral Seele bowed her head.
Understanding
After a while, Seele murmured, "We should get out of here."
"Don't hurry," I told her.
"Festina," she said, "ever since Chee and I escaped, the High Council has stationed two picket ships in this system, to make sure no one leaves again. Do you think this is the first time I've tried to land on Melaquin? I'm an admiral; I have a ship at my disposal. Every now and then, I try to come, but the pickets always turn me away. When I received your egg collection, I came once more, wondering if this would be the time I'd defy the pickets. I lurked in this system's Oort cloud for more than a day, trying to make up my mind. Then, suddenly, you Explorers launched a ship; a ship with Sperm capability." She smiled. "That sure as hell caught the pickets napping. The two of them bolted after the Explorer ship and must be in deep space by now."
Seele grabbed me by the arm. "I saw my chance and I took it, Festina. The first time in forty years I've been able to land on Melaquin. I came to see my old city. I came to see some glass friends…" She shook her head. "Never mind. I've found you instead. Our sensors picked you up while your plane was flying. And now you have a chance to escape! The others won't succeed — the pickets will snare them with tractor beams and drag them back to this planet. But while the pickets are gone, you and I can get clear. Let's go, Festina. This chance may never come again."
"So I should save myself and leave the others in the lurch? That's what you and Chee did all those years ago."
Seele looked stricken. "We don't have time to discuss this…"
"I have all the time in the world," I told her. "The way I see it, you found a working spaceship in the city below…"
"Yes, but—"
"And you took off without worrying about other Explorers banished on the planet…"
"It was a small ship, and we had no way to locate the other—"
"Then," I kept going, "you got back to Technocracy space and cut a deal with the High Council to save your hides. You'd keep your mouths shut, and in exchange, the council would make you admirals. Isn't that it? So you and Chee got cushy positions while other Explorers kept disappearing."
"Festina, you have to understand—"
"No, Admiral," I interrupted, "you've picked the wrong day for me to be understanding." I turned away from her in disgust. "And you've picked the wrong woman to save," I shouted over my shoulder as I stomped back to the eagle. "Just because I remind you of your damaged young self—"
"Festina," Seele said.
Something in her tone made me turn around. She was aiming a stunner at me.
"I'm like a magnet for those guns," I told her. Then she shot me.
My New Quarters
I woke up in bed. The bed was in a standard officer's cabin on board a starship. My head throbbed with all the leaden pain that comes from a stun-blast. In a way, that was a blessing — I couldn't focus my mind on other ugly thoughts that threatened to devil my conscience.
Much as I wanted just to lie there, wincing each time my pulse bludgeoned my frontal lobes, I faced a physical imperative — after hours of unconsciousness, I urgently needed to empty my bladder. Groaning, I made myself vertical and sat on the edge of the bed until purple things stopped exploding behind my eyes. Then I staggered to the toilet, did my business, and continued to sit on the seat, staring dully at the wall.
My head throbbed. I counted sixty blunt pulses of pain, then stumbled back toward the bed. As I passed the desk, I noticed a plain white pill sitting on top of a card that read, THIS MIGHT HELP. I swallowed the pill immediately, on the theory it couldn't possibly make things worse.
In a few minutes, the pain did ease a little: enough to let me take stock of my surroundings. Yes, I was in officer's quarters, almost exactly like my cabin on the Jacaranda but a mirror image — on the port side instead of starboard. The room had no decorations, but standing near the door were three packing crates, lined against the bulkhead. I opened the lid of the closest one and saw many small objects wrapped in wads of cotton.
My eggs.
My eggs.
Tears came to my eyes. I was too scared to touch a single egg; I just looked at the cotton-wrapped bundles, counting them over and over again… only the ones I could see at the top of the open box.
My eggs.
"This is stupid," I said aloud. "I lost Yarrun and Chee and Oar, and I'm overjoyed over some eggs?"
But I was. I had not quite lost everything. Not quite.
The Stars
The door chittered and Admiral Seele walked in. Doors open for admirals, even if you don't give permission to enter.
"You're awake," she said. "Sorry for being abrupt, but we were wasting time."
"So you shot me. Just what I'd expect from an admiral."
"No," she replied. "A true admiral would have ordered someone else to shoot you. I'm still an Explorer at heart."
I had to smile in spite of myself. Then a sobering thought hit me. "You don't really intend to take me back to the Technocracy?"
"If you prefer," Seele said, "I can drop you off at a Fringe World. Admirals can order course changes on a whim."
"You can't drop me anywhere but Melaquin. The League will kill me if I try to enter interstellar space. I'm a murderer."
She lifted her eyebrows.
"I am," I insisted. "I killed my partner. And I would have killed Jelca if Oar hadn't beat me to it."
"Festina, I can't believe—"
"Believe it," I snapped. "I'm a dangerous non-sentient. And now that I've told you, your life is on the line too. If you let this ship leave the Melaquin system, we'll both be snuffed out."
"Then we'd better go to the bridge," Seele said quietly.
She led me out the door and down the hall, up a companionway and through the hatch leading to the bridge corridor. There, we passed a man wearing Social Science green and he saluted… first the admiral, then me, although I only wore the skirt and top built from my tightsuit. He must have thought I was a civilian, and civilians on Fleet vessels were almost always dignitaries of some kind.
"Admiral on the bridge!" someone barked as we entered the bridge proper. A few people snapped to attention; most remained at their posts. Protocol is one thing, but duty is something else — even vacuum personnel knew that.