Ozzie had landed on the wall not far from the Charybdis. He used the fuseto patches on his cuffs and soles to scuttle along like a crab until he reached the thick pillar supporting one of the umbilical arms. A man in a green jumpsuit and white helmet emerged from the frigate and started shouting. Ozzie waved back cheerfully. Giselle landed beside him, and started to calm the man.
“You must recognize Ozzie,” Mellanie heard her say as soon as she was in range.
“Well, yes,” he replied.
“Hi there, dude.”
“Yes, hello. But nobody put this on the schedule.”
“Mark, come on,” Giselle said. “You know the schedule changes faster than anyone can keep up.”
Mellanie landed on the side of the dock and struggled not to fly off again. Fuseto patches were damn difficult to work. She studied her feet for a moment to make sure they were secure, then looked up. Her face split into a wide smile. “Hello, Mark.”
“Huh!” Mark gawped in disbelief. “Mellanie?”
Giselle gave her an alarmed look. “You two know each other?”
“We’re old best friends,” Mellanie drawled in her huskiest voice. Sure enough, Mark’s face turned red.
“She’s a reporter,” Mark protested. “And she works for the SI. I thought the Dynasty didn’t want it on this planet.”
“And she saved your ass,” Mellanie said. “How are Barry and Sandy?”
Mark made an embarrassed grumbling sound in his throat.
“Mark, I’m engaged to Nigel now,” Mellanie said. “I’m going to be one of his harem. So you be nice to the boss’s wife.”
Ozzie’s face screwed up into surprise. “You’re engaged to Nige?”
“He proposed the other night.”
“You never said—” He shook his head. “Okay, not relevant. Mark, I’m just up here to do my inspection tour, okay. Plus I’m really dying to see the frigate; it’d bust my rep if anyone found out what a serious techhead I am, but I gotta say, this is one smooth piece of engineering. Giselle told me all about the Searcher flight and what you did.”
“Well, you know,” Mark said. It was a tone that hinted at a lot of secret pride.
“I guess we all owe you, huh?” Ozzie had reached Mark’s side, and patted him man-to-man on the shoulder.
“The pilots are the important guys,” Mark said.
“Come on! Remember I built the very first wormhole generator with my own hands. I know how much skill it takes to integrate machinery. Thought we’d never get that mother finished. And this”—he ran his hand over the hull—“this has to be orders of magnitude above and beyond that antique. Respect to you assembly dudes, I mean that.”
“Thanks.”
“Let’s go check out the cabin, huh?”
Mark gave Giselle one last questioning look. She nodded her approval.
“Sure thing,” Mark said. He started to worm his way back down into the frigate’s airlock. “Careful here, there’s not a lot of room.”
Ozzie flashed a triumphant grin at Mellanie and Giselle, and followed Mark on board.
“Did you make that up?” Giselle asked.
“What?” Mellanie was close enough to the frigate to reach out and touch it. She held back, still awed by its raw power. The hull was so black it looked like a bubble of interstellar space. She half expected to see galaxies floating inside.
“About Nigel. Are you engaged?”
“Oh, that.” She finally pressed her hand against the frigate. It was a historic moment after all. The surface was completely frictionless, and thermal-neutral. Tactile nerves told her she was touching something, but that was all the impression she got. Her eyes couldn’t actually focus on it. “He did propose. I haven’t said yes yet.”
Giselle gave the frigate’s open airlock a twitchy look. “Take my advice, and say yes. That way he might not fling you into suspension for more than a thousand years.”
“Come on, Ozzie has to do this. How do you think he’s going to get rid of Mark? Has he…” She trailed off fast. Her inserts were telling her the docking bay airlock was opening. Dense and very powerful energy sources were emerging. “Oh, crap.”
“What?”
“Somebody’s here. Not good. Warn Ozzie.” She pushed off lightly, gliding around the frigate’s curving hull.
The entire communications spectrum was suddenly filled by a single signaclass="underline" “YOU BY THE CHARYBDIS, DO NOT MOVE, DEACTIVATE ANY WEAPONS YOU ARE CARRYING.”
Mellanie slid around the ultra-black hull to find herself looking directly at a squad of armored suits flying out of the airlock like angry wasps. Active sensors locked on to her. She instinctively tried to deflect them. Her hands and cheeks began to ripple with silver lines.
“No!” Giselle shrieked.
An instant of disconnection—
—and Mellanie found herself spinning violently. She didn’t know why. Her body had gone numb, apart from the single sensation of cold sweat pricking her forehead. She thought it was the prequel to vomiting, but she couldn’t even feel her stomach. Then she smacked into the docking bay wall and rebounded. Her limbs didn’t seem to be working either. It was strange she didn’t feel any pain; that had been a nasty impact. Red dots drifted across her vision, which appeared to be dimming. Sensation came rushing back in on her consciousness in a terrifying wave of pain. She tried to wail, but liquid was blocking her throat. She couldn’t breathe. Her body was alive with agony, at its worst down her left side. She coughed, trying to clear her lungs. Streamers of blood poured out of her mouth, then wobbled crazily in front of her. Her hands scrabbled at the main source of the pain, finding only warm wet jelly. Thick webs of oscillating blood were spinning around her. On the other side of them a giant black shape slid past. Turbulence from its wake swatted the blood, splatting it against her. Her need to breathe was excruciating. She coughed again, and more blood bubbled out of her throat forming sticky ribbons in front of her. Her whole body juddered. The pain was now submerging itself below an intense cold.
A face appeared above her. Nigel. Mellanie tried to smile. He looked very angry.
“Get a fucking medical kit here. Now!”
She tried to tell him it’d be fine, she was okay, really. That just allowed more blood to escape. It was very red. Her vision was closing in.
“Mellanie!” Nigel’s voice, a long way off.
There was so much she wanted to say. She wondered if Orion had woken up yet. But now the blackness conquered everything.
Ozzie had been inside an Apollo command module once. The Smithsonian staff had removed the perspex cover from the hatchway and stood by with nervous smiles as he squirmed around the historic antique interior. He couldn’t remember how long ago that was now, at least two centuries, but he did recall marveling at how three people had survived in such a small space for the ten days it took to travel to the moon and back.
As he followed Mark through the Charybdis airlock and into the cabin he began to feel a twinge of envy for those old astronauts and the abundant room they had back then. The frigate’s cabin was small; three couches fixed to the rear bulkhead (the reason he suddenly remembered the Apollo) with a one-and-a-half-meter gap between them and the forward bulkhead that was a solid wall of arrays and portals.
“Is this it?” he asked in amazement.
“Sure is.” Mark had levered himself into the left-hand couch, and smiled knowingly at him. “You claustrophobic?”
“We’re about to find out.” Ozzie slid into the central couch. The arrays in front of his nose were covered in symbols he didn’t recognize, but they were powered up. He found an i-spot and pressed his hand against it. “Can you interface?” he asked the SIsubroutine.