The plain was next. A golden plain of grass, with the watchers endlessly staring into the heavens…
Not there any longer. Never there.
Esperance was where. Esperance.
“Jeremy?” He missed the noise from that quarter. Jeremy was very quiet.
“Yeah,” he heard finally. “Yeah. I’m awake.”
“We’re there. You drink the packets?”
“Trying,” Jeremy said. And scrambled out of his bunk and ran for the bathroom.
Jeremy was sick at his stomach. Light body, Fletcher said to himself, and drank a nutri-pack, trying to get his own stomach calmed.
Esperance. Their turn-around point. Midway on their journey.
Chapter 24
Boreale was a day from docking. Champlain was just coming into final approach, an hour from dock.
JR looked at the information while he drank down the nutrient pack and assessed damage. There was one piece of information he wanted, and it was delayed, pending. Charlie would check on the Old Man. Meanwhile he knew his two problems were there ahead of him, but not that much ahead, not so far ahead that they could have made extensive arrangements.
He meditated ordering a high-speed run-in that would put them at dock not long after the two ships in question.
It would also focus intense attention on them, at all levels of Esperance structure, and might impinge on negotiations to come. Foul up the Old Man’s job and he’d hear about it.
He ordered the first and second V- dump, which removed that possibility—and followed approach regulations for a major starstation.
Please God the Old Man was all right. He got down another nutri-pack.
A message from Charlie came through, welcome and feared at once. “ He’s complaining ,” Charlie said. “ Says he’s getting dressed. Madison says he should stay put .”
He gave a little laugh, he, sitting on the bridge and waiting for Alan to relieve him. Their plans had them saving first and second shift in reserve throughout the run-in. Third and fourth were going to work in that edge-of-waking way bridge crew sat ready during jump, and Vickie was going to be at Helm on dock. That meant long shifts, but it also meant the Old Man was going to get maximum rest during their approach.
So would Madison, whose feelings in this shift of personnel were also involved. Madison had gone on the protected list right along with the Old Man, and while Madison hadn’t quite complained about Alan’s and Francie’s ganging up to take all those shifts, Madison hadn’t realized officially that he was being coddled.
“Tell the Old Man there’s not a pan in the galley out of place, and Boreale will be thinking about our presence on her tail as a major Alliance caution flag. She won’t innovate policy. Isn’t that the rule?”
“ Don’t quote me my own advisements !” the Old Man’s voice broke in: that com-panel on his desk reached anything it wanted to. Of course the Old Man had been shadowing his decisions.
Then, quietly, “ Not a pan out of place, indeed, Jamie. Good job .”
“Thank you, captain, sir,” JR said calmly, then advised Com 2 to activate the intercom, because it was time. The live intercom blinked an advisory Channel 1 in the corner of his screen.
“The ship is stable,” he began then, the age-old advisory of things rightfully in their places and the ship on course for a peaceful several days.
Routine settled over the ship. Fletcher would never have credited how comforting that could feel—just the routine of meals in the galley, and himself and the junior-juniors stuck with a modified laundry-duty, a stack they couldn’t hope to work their way through in the four days, while senior-juniors drew the draining and cleaning of spoiled tanks in Jake’s domain—not an enviable assignment. Meanwhile the flash-clean was going at a steady rate, since they had the senior-seniors’ dress uniforms on priority for meetings that meant the future of the Alliance and a diminution of Mazian’s options.
He’d never imagined that a button-push on a laundry machine could be important to war and peace in the universe, but it was the personal determination of the junior-junior crew that their captains were going into those all-important station conferences in immaculate, impressive dress.
They had to run up to A deck to collect senior laundry: all of A deck was so busy with clean-up after their run that senior staff had no time for personal jobs. Linda and Vince did most of the errands: Jeremy for his part wanted to stay in the working part of the laundry and not work the counter.
“No,” Fletcher said to that idea. “You go out there, you work, you smile, you say hello, you behave as your charming self and you don’t flinch.”
“They think I’m a jerk!” Jeremy protested.
“We know you’re not. You know you’re not. Get out there, meet people, and look as if you aren’t.”
Jeremy wasn’t happy. Sue and Connor showed up to check in bed linen, the one item they were running for the crew as a whole, and Jeremy ducked the encounter.
Fletcher went out and checked the cousins off their list, and Jeremy showed up after they were gone.
“You can’t do that,” Fletcher said. “You can’t flinch. Yes, you’re on the outs. I’ve been on the outs. They’ve been on the outs. It happens. People get over it if you don’t look like a target.”
“They’re all talking about me.”
“Probably they’re talking about their upcoming liberty, if you want the honest truth. Don’t flinch . They forget, and it was an accident, for God’s sake. It wasn’t like you stole it.”
Jeremy moped off to the area with the machines, a maneuver, Fletcher said to himself in some annoyance, to have him doing the consoling, when, no, it wasn’t a theft, and, no, losing it wasn’t entirely Jeremy’s fault.
Irreplaceable, in the one sense, that it was from Satin’s hand; but entirely replaceable, in another. He’d begun to understand what the stick was worth—which he suspected now was absolutely nothing at all, in Satin’s mind: the stick was as replaceable as everything else downers made. You lost it? she would say— any downer would say, in a world full of sticks and stones and feathers. I find more, Melody would say.
No downer would have fought over it, that was the truth he finally, belatedly, remembered. Fighting was a human decision, to protect what was a human memory, a human value set on Satin’s gift. It was certain Satin herself never would fight over it, nor had ever meant contention and anger to be a part of her gift to him.
In that single thought—he had everything she was. He had everything Melody and Patch were.
And he suddenly had answers, in this strange moment standing in a ship’s laundry, for why he’d not been able to stay there, forever dreaming dreams with downers. Satin had sent him back to the sky, and into a human heaven where human reasons operated. She might not know why someone in some sleepover would steal her gift, but a downer would be dismayed and bewildered that humans fought over it.
But—but—this was the one downer who’d gone to space, who’d set her stamp on the whole current arrangement of hisa and human affairs. This was the downer who’d dealt with researchers and administrators and Elene Quen. She knew the environment she sent him to. She’d seen war, and been appalled.