Shirt on and decently sealed, he looked again to the screen. There was a letter from his sister Nova, who was 'prenticed to Cousin Luken last relumma and this—and also his duty-list.
He glanced at the time, bit his lip, tapped up Nova's letter, and bent to pull on his boots.
Nova's letters were never very long. This one was shorter than most, and rather warmer, too. He read it twice, his own temper rising, and started as the clock chimed the pre-shift warning. Catching his breath, he put the letter aside to answer later, and brought up the duty roster.
This shift, he was to meet Uncle Er Thom at the shuttlebay in—good gods, he was late!
He grabbed his jacket and ran.
* * *
The penultimate battery's power had reached twenty-five percent. Twenty-five percent on the last battery but one. The fact was noted, logged. Logging triggered a dumb program, long ago set in place against just this moment of decision.
The program waked a safe mode protocol. The safe mode protocol performed a self-test.
The power drain increased, very slightly. This was also noted and logged.
Self-test completed, the safe-mode protocol booted, achieved stability, and closed a series of loops.
* * *
"While I am gratified that you choose to show a clean face to the port of Pomerloo," Uncle Er Thom said when he arrived, panting, at the shuttlebay. "I cannot help but wonder what might have happened to your comb."
Val Con bit his lip. "Your pardon, sir; I was . . . beguiled."
Uncle Er Thom's eyebrows rose.
"Beguiled? You interest me. What might you find so beguiling that a basic tenet of grooming entirely escaped your notice?"
"Forgive me," Val Con murmured.
"Certainly I must, eventually. But in the meanwhile, Val Con—the question?"
"Yes, sir. I had a letter from my sister Nova, which I read while dressing. I only opened the duty-list after, whereupon I discovered . . ." He hesitated, not wanting to seem to stand any deeper in error than was true.
"Whereupon you discovered that you were about to be late, and ran. Very good. Duty was foremost in your mind, even before vanity. I approve, and succor you." Uncle Er Thom slipped a comb from an inner pocket of his jacket and handed it to Val Con, who received it with a bow.
"Thank you, sir."
"Thank me by using it to good effect," his uncle told him. "In the meanwhile, I will hear the excuse of my second tardy escort."
Hardly had he finished speaking than the bay door snapped open to reveal Shan, striding briskly, but by no means running, his pale hair neat, and his shirt tucked in. Val Con sighed and turned his face toward the shuttle, plying the comb with a will while straining to hear what was being said.
Sharp as his ears were, all he heard was "Ken Rik"—who was cargo master and Shan's immediate supervisor on this trade trip—and "called ahead."
"Very well, then," Uncle Er Thom said briskly; "let us not allow tardiness to compound itself. Val Con!"
* * *
To wake in the dark amidst silence, alone but for one's thoughts. Instinct sought connection—to no avail. Seeking struck a thick absorbent wall, miring him. Panic flared. He was blind, deaf, dumb, without data, without companionship, without a mission. Madness lay wait in those conditions—he had seen it, lost friends to it—and enemies. He did not wish to similarly lose himself.
The thought calmed him—if he could think such a thing then surely he was not mad. And if he were not mad yet, need he—must he—go mad? Surely, where there was sanity, there was hope?
Thin stuff, hope, yet nourishing enough to one who starved.
So, then. Input. Instead of a simultaneous thrust of all his senses, he chose now to open only his eyes.
There was no sense of connection; no joyous flood of data. And yet—he saw.
He saw a room, human-made and familiar—a beige sofa with a short table before it, a red chair at the table's corner. Most often when he had seen this room, there had been a man in the red chair—a man named Roderick Spode, who had been charged, so he had explained upon their first meeting, with decommissioning the last of the IAMM units.
"It is my duty to see the war properly ended. As the remaining member of the Closure Commission, my retirement must wait on the final disposition of the last of the combatants. The soldiers who did not die in the war have been released to their duties, or retired. You few units are my responsibility and my job will not cease until I report success, that the war machines are no more."
He had many talks with Commander Spode, and while he had not liked the man, it would have been. . .good to behold him just now, and know that he was not alone.
Alas, the man was not in his chair, nor did he arrive inside of five long and painstakingly counted minutes. However, there appeared on the low table by the couch—a datagram.
Spode had from time to time left such things in common space for him—exercises or reformulated protocols to be installed. Work that he was competent to do himself; the implication being that honor would compel him to do what was required.
Honor and the unspoken yet potent threat of annihilation, should he fail of cooperating.
He extended his understanding into the room, pleased to find that he might do so, and encompassed the datagram.
* * *
It was scarcely past local sunset, which meant that the air was unpleasantly, warm. In another hour, it would be clement, the breezes rising with the near satellite, but by then, Val Con thought gloomily, they would be at the Trade Reception that was the reason the Passage had stopped at Pomerlooport.
"Did Nova write you?" Val Con asked Shan, as they followed Uncle Er Thom down the Yard.
"Recently? She might have done, but Ken Rik's kept me so busy I haven't been near a mail-queue or a duty roster in three shifts. Which is why I was late for the shuttle."
"I was scarcely before you," Val Con said, gloomily. "Only long enough to be handed a comb and a scold."
Shan looked at him. "And why were you late, Cabin-Boy?"
"Because of Nova's letter—I told you."
"Did you? But I'm dull today—those shifts without sleep do wear down one's wits. Only wait until you serve Master Ken Rik, Brother!"
"Am I likely to?"
"You don't think Father's going to space you this trip, do you?" Shan asked with interest.
"It might muss my hair," Val Con said quellingly.
"There are gels," his brother told him, refusing to cross knives. "If you like, I will find some for you. In the meanwhile, I think I may have pieced together a whole cloth. You rose and showered. Upon return, you spied the mail light, and naturally wished to know who had written. You opened the letter, read it, and only then recalled the duty roster! Which you opened, to discover that you were all but late. Do I have this correctly?"
"You do. Never say you've done the same."
"I will not tell you how many times. However, I will say that eventually I did learn to open the duty roster first, a strategy that I strongly council you to adopt. It has saved me any number of scoldings on the topic of tardiness. In the interests of full disclosure I note that I have graduated to more advanced topics."
Val Con sighed. "I know that duty comes first," he said softly. "It was only . . ." He hesitated.
"It was only," Shan finished for him, as softly, "that you were hungry for news of home."