“Fuck you very much,” Ozzie shouted after him.
***
Eight hours into the flight to Port Evergreen, and the Carbon Goose passengers were finally starting to relax. There was a general feeling among them now that they might actually make it to the wormhole generator after all. Tail winds had picked up as they crossed the ocean. Wilson had announced their projected flight time was another hour and a quarter at most.
Paula wasn’t anything like as optimistic as the others. The Starflyer only needed a five-minute lead on them through the wormhole. Even with their reduced flight time, it was going to get close on forty minutes. Apart from a couple of hours spent in a fitful sleep, she’d spent her time reviewing contingency survival plans. There were plenty of scenarios loaded into the avionics, mostly connected with the plane being forced to ditch in the ocean. Given that each Carbon Goose carried emergency food packs, and there were more stores at Shackleton and Port Evergreen, she estimated that they’d have enough to eat for between seventeen to twenty months. It would mean returning to Shackleton where the other planes were parked, but they weren’t facing instant doom. Power and warmth were certainly easy enough; the micropiles could supply them with electricity for decades.
She walked back through the top passenger deck, which everyone had settled in. The Guardians regarded her with expressions of suspicion and hostility. Not that it bothered her; open animosity was a near constant companion in her job. Cat’s Claws simply ignored her, while the three remaining members of the Paris team smiled warmly as she passed. The stairs at the back of the cabin took her down to the next deck, which had its lights down low. She could just see the horizon through the small circular windows, a fuzzy pink line separating the black ocean from a star-filled sky. Flashes from the neutron star sent a broad livid blue shimmer across the water, leaving a purple afterimage on her retinas. They were just keeping ahead of the dawn, which was scheduled to catch up with them twenty minutes after they reached Port Evergreen.
Four more sets of stairs, and two pressure hatches put her in the lower cargo hold, where all their vehicles were stowed. The turbine noise was loudest here, almost as if there was some kind of combustion engine operating somewhere close by. Even with Wilson turning the heating on full, it was chilly in the big compartment. She zipped up the black and lavender fleece that had been in her CST executive travel pack and walked to the center, where Qatux was spending the journey. They’d managed to find half a dozen emergency heaters, which now ringed the large alien blowing warm air on its dark gray hide.
Nobody knew anything about Raiel physiology, so Paula couldn’t tell if its occasional shivering was the same reaction that humans had to cold, or a manifestation of its little dependency problem. Two of its smaller tentacles quivered as she approached.
“Paula, you are most welcome,” it sighed hoarsely.
“Thank you.”
Tiger Pansy was sitting on a crate beside Qatux, wearing the contents of two travel packs over her skirt and blouse. For once she’d abandoned her heels to use a pair of boots, then pulled some fur-lined travel slippers on top of them. She still looked miserably cold, her gloved hands cupped around a mug of tomato soup.
Adam and Bradley had also pulled up some crates. Their expressions remained neutral as she sat on the corner of the crate that Tiger Pansy was using. For whatever reason, Bradley had never gone in for reprofiling or genetic modification; he was still maintaining his mid-thirties age, though she’d never been able to track down which rejuvenation clinic he used. A tall man, especially compared to her, with his fair hair shading almost to silver-blond, contrasting with the darkest eyes she’d ever seen, his handsome features rose with a welcoming smile, not in the least triumphant, merely polite. Bradley was genuinely pleased to have her with them, though she would not forget nor forgive the terms that had brought her on board.
Adam couldn’t be more different from the founder of the Guardians; much squatter than Bradley’s athletically lanky frame, with muscle bulk that had been added since their last confirmed image of him on Velaines. Most of the Paris office would have walked right past him without a flicker of recognition, but after so long Paula could identify his face anywhere no matter what reprofiling he gave himself. Indeed, after so many changes there was now a severe limit on any new alterations. This new rounded face that alluded to youthful middle age was a strong warning against so much economic self-applied cellular reprofiling. His cheeks and chin were leathery, and afflicted with what appeared to be a mild form of eczema. The collar of his semiorganic coat was plagued by strands of dark hair that was dropping out like a radiation victim’s.
“Shaving must be painful,” she said.
Adam’s hand went halfway to his face before he became conscious of it. “There are suitable creams, thank you for your concern. You don’t look too hot yourself right now. Travel sick, Investigator?”
“Just tired.”
“Please,” Bradley pleaded.
“I’ve been assessing our food supplies should we be stuck here,” Paula said. “We should be all right for some time, but I came to ask what Qatux eats.”
All five of the Raiel’s eye stalks swiveled around in unison to focus on her. “Your concern is touching, Paula. There is no need for alarm. I will be able to digest human food. I estimate I will consume as much as five human adults per day. With the exception of curry. It does not agree with my digestive process.”
“Hey, me neither,” Tiger Pansy chirped in.
“Are you all right?” Paula asked her. “I can spell you if you want to sleep.”
“That’s real kind. I’m okay, though. I grabbed a few hours in here a while back.”
“Do you and Mr. Elvin intend to argue with each other?” Qatux asked. “You have been adversaries for many years now. I would find such contrary and emotional discourse to be most elating.”
“I’m not looking for a fight,” Paula said stiffly. “This is a new situation, for both of us.”
Adam looked up at the Raiel. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Old human saying.”
“Do you really set aside old battles so easily?”
“Put it into context with the threat of humanity’s extermination, and you’ll understand,” Paula said.
“It’s kinda sweet,” Tiger Pansy said. “That we can all just get along, you know.”
“Thank you, my dear,” Qatux said. “That was a most impressive feeling of sympathy and, I believe, camaraderie.”
“That’s why I get the big bucks,” she said, giggling. “Not!”
Paula turned to Bradley. “The good news is that if the Starflyer does close the wormhole behind it, we will be able to survive.”
“You might, my dear, but for me such failure will be worse than death.”
“I understand. I’d like to know now, what exactly are your plans. I might be able to help.”
“Plans,” Bradley murmured sadly. “I had grand plans, Investigator. Once. Today, things have become somewhat fluid. All we can do is hope that our friends on Far Away find some way of preventing the Starflyer from going through the wormhole until we arrive at Port Evergreen. That way we might still manage to corner it and kill it. Dreaming heavens, I cannot believe it has come to this.”
Paula glanced over at the Volvos lurking in the gloom around her, their tops nearly touching the roof of the cargo hold. “So what are they carrying? What have you been smuggling to Far Away all these years?”
“Don’t look at me.” Adam grunted. “I’m just the hired hand who arranges shipment.”
“Bradley?” Paula asked.
“I had devised a scheme to give the planet its revenge. It requires a great deal of sophisticated force field technology to implement.”
“How does force field technology kill the Starflyer? Do you trap it inside one?”
“Oh no, the planet’s revenge is designed to destroy the Marie Celeste. I intended to release it when we knew the Starflyer was on its way back. Without its ship, it will be truly marooned on Far Away. It can’t go home, and it can’t return to the Commonwealth. We can hunt it down and kill it.”