Addie and the captain were waiting for him at the airlock on the other end of the tether. Together they carried the boy to the infirmary that had once been Bracknell’s isolation cell and left him in Addie’s care.
“What’s a teenaged boy doing aboard the ship, captain?” Bracknell asked as he peeled himself out of the nanosuit, back at the airlock.
“My number one sails with his family. They make their quarters in the old smelter. Cheaper for him than paying rent at Ceres, and his wife’s aboard to keep him company.”
A cozy arrangement, Bracknell thought. But boys can get themselves into trouble. I’ll bet they don’t sail with us on the next trip from Ceres.
“Your shift on the bridge is just about finished,” the captain said gruffly, as they headed back toward the bridge. “You might as well go back to your quarters. I can get along on the bridge without you.”
It wasn’t until he was back in his quarters, after a quick stop at the galley for some hot soup, that Bracknell realized his duty shift still had more than two hours to run.
Was the captain being kind to me? he wondered.
PURGATORY
His life had no purpose, Bracknell realized. He breathed, he ate, he slept, he worked on the bridge of Alhambra under the baleful scrutiny of Captain Farad. But why? What was the point of it? He lived for no reason, no goal, drifting through the cold dark emptiness of the Belt, sailing from one nameless chunk of rock to another, meaninglessly. He was like an automaton, working his brain-numbingly dull tasks as if under remote control while his mind churned the same agonizing visions over and over again: the tower, the collapse, the crushed and bleeding bodies.
Sometimes he thought of Lara and wondered what she was doing. Then he would tell himself that he wanted her to forget him, to build a new life for herself. One of the terms of his exile was that neither Lara nor anyone else he’d known on Earth would be told where he was. He was cut off from all communication with his former friends and associates; he was totally banished. For all those who once knew him on Earth, Mance Bracknell was dead and gone forever.
Except for Rev. Danvers. He got a message through to me; maybe he’ll accept a message from me. Bracknell tried to put that out of his mind. What good would it do to talk to the minister? Besides, Danvers had helped to convict him. Maybe his call was in response to a guilty conscience, Bracknell thought. Damn the man! Better to be totally cut off than to have this slim hope of some communication, some link with his old life. Danvers was torturing him, holding out that meaningless thread of hope.
Now and then, between duty shifts and always with the captain’s permission, Bracknell would pull on one of the nanofabric spacesuits and go outside the ship. Hanging at the end of a tether he would gaze out at the stars, an infinite universe of stars and worlds beyond counting. It made him feel small, insignificant, a meaningless mote in the vast spinning galaxy. He learned to find the blue dot that was Earth. It made him feel worse than ever. It reminded him of how alone he was, how far from warmth and love and hope. In time, he stopped his outside excursions. He feared that one day he would open his suit and let the universe end his existence.
The only glimmer of sunshine in his new life was the captain’s daughter, Addie. Although Alhambra was a sizable ship, most of its volume was taken up by cargo holds and the smelting facility where the first mate’s family lived. The crew numbered only twelve, at most, and often Farad sailed without a full complement of crew. The habitation module was small, almost intimate. Bracknell knew there were liaisons between crew members; he himself had been propositioned more than once, by men as well as women. He had always refused. None of them tempted him at all. He saw relationships form among crew members, both hetero and homosexual. He saw them break apart, too, sometimes in bitterness and sorrow, more than once in violence that the captain had to suppress with force.
Once in a while he bumped into Addie, quite literally, as they squeezed past one another in the ship’s narrow passageways or happened to be in the galley at the same time. She always had a bright smile for him on her dark, almond-eyed face. Her figure was enticingly full and supple. Yet he never spoke more than a few words of polite conversation to her, never let himself react to the urgings of his glands.
One day, as he left the bridge after another tediously boring stint of duty, Bracknell ducked into the galley for a cup of coffee. Addie was sitting at the little square table, sipping from a steaming mug.
“How’s the coffee today?” Bracknell asked.
“It’s tea.”
“Oh.” He picked out a mug and poured from the ceramic urn, then pulled a chair out and sat next to her. Addie’s eyes flicked to the open hatch and for an instant Bracknell thought she was going to jump to her feet and flee.
Instead, she seemed to relax, at least a little.
“Life on this ship isn’t terribly exciting, is it?” he said.
“No, I suppose it isn’t.”
For long moments neither one of them knew what to say. At last Bracknell asked, “Your name—Addle. Is it short for Adelaide?”
She broke into an amused smile. “No, certainly not. My full name is Aditi.”
“Aditi?”
“It is a Hindu name. It means ‘free and unbounded.’ It is the name of the mother of the gods.”
Hindu, Bracknell thought. Of course. The captain told me she’s from India. That explains the lilt in her accent.
“Free and unbounded,” he echoed. “Kind of ironic, here on this nutshell of a ship.”
“Yes,” she agreed forlornly. Then she brightened. “But my father is making arrangements for me to marry. He has amassed a large dowry for me. In another few years I will be wed to a wealthy man and live in comfort back on Earth.”
“You’re engaged?”
“Oh, no, not yet. My father hasn’t found the proper man for me. But he is seeking one out.”
“And you’ll marry whoever he picks?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Don’t you want to pick your husband for yourself?”
Her smile turned slightly remorseful. “What chance do I have for that, aboard this ship?”
Bracknell had to admit she was right.
He went back to his quarters, but before he could close the door, the captain pushed against it, glowering at him.
“I told you to keep away from my daughter.”
“She was in the galley,” Bracknell explained. “We spoke a few words together.”
“About marriage.”
“Yes.” Bracknell felt his temper rising. “She’s waiting for you to find her a husband.”
“She’ll have to wait a few more years. Fifteen’s too young for marriage. Maybe it’s old enough in India, but where I come from—”
“Fifteen? She’s only fifteen?”
“That’s right.”
“How can she be a doctor…?”
The captain’s twisted lip sneered at him. “She’s smart enough to run the computer’s medical diagnostics. Like most doctors, she lets the computer program make the decisions.”
“But—”
“You keep your distance from her.”
“Yes, sir,” Bracknell said fervently. Fifteen, he was thinking. That voluptuous body is only fifteen years old.
“Remember, I watch everything you do,” the captain said. “Stay away from her.”
He left Bracknell’s quarters as abruptly as he’d entered. Bracknell stood there alone, shaking inside at the thought that a fifteen-year-old could look so alluring.