68
Chang
After the exec left the ready room, I tried not to think about what an asshole Henjsen was. Corrected myself—selfish asshole. Took a couple of deep breaths. It didn’t help. I’d spent pretty much all day threeday and fourday trying to get the frigging artifact back, then the last of the science team and samples, and the greedy bitch had almost gotten us wiped out. Then… I should have listened more closely to Morgan and had Ysario mass-check every piece of cargo. Every last one had to have been somewhat over-mass.
What frigging good did it do to get another thousand kilos of samples if they didn’t get back to the ship? Or if the experts who could explain them didn’t? Or had Henjsen figured the mass to the last kilo and pressed right to the limit? She could have found that out. Either way, I didn’t like her tactics and attitude.
I was tired, and just wanted to get something to eat— by myself—and fall into my bunk. Except I was too angry to do either. Just stood there for another few minutes, mentally cursing Henjsen.
Morgan walked into the ready room while I was still seething. Looked like he been frozen in deep space, then quick-thawed—red eyes over purple-black, half circles, lines etched across a pallid forehead.
“I heard Henjsen had an accident.” His voice was hoarse.
“Wish it had been fatal.”
“That wouldn’t have been good. Her father is the senior council rep from Agder. He chairs the D.S.S. oversight committee.”
“Shit.”
“It’s all right. So long as she’s not permanently hurt, he won’t smash orbits, not when the endangerment charge is possible. Write it up and hold it.” His laugh sounded ghoulish. “I wouldn’t count on a career in the D.S.S.— not that you ever had.”
Ready room was silent.
“When do you expect to launch the needles?” I finally asked.
“Who said anything about launching needles?” he countered.
“The way you look. Or do you plan to wait for your ‘company’ to arrive and cut us off?”
“They already have. Right now, they’re sitting between us and the Gate, and it’s not just a ship or two. It’s a flotilla. They look like Covenanters—two battle cruisers, two frigates, and a corvette.”
“Why aren’t they just sitting off the Gate?”
“They might be doing that also,” Morgan said tiredly. “It’s too far to determine.”
“What do you and the captain have in mind?”
“Wait until someone commits. There’s no source of fusactor mass anywhere near, except Danann. We got supplies for a year. They don’t. The longer they wait, the easier for us to evade them.”
I hated waiting. Would have hated getting potted by a Covenanter cruiser worse, though. “You think they’re trying to spook us?”
“I’d guess so.” He frowned. “If we stay here long, Henjsen will start pressuring the captain to allow some teams back on Danann.”
“How far out are the Covenanters?”
“Six stans.”
“Just enough so that we can’t afford to put even small teams back down.”
“That’s right.”
“How long do you think they’ll wait?”
“A few hours, a few days, a week, who knows?”
“Why don’t we cut and ran?”
“You? Suggesting that?”
“Not an idiot, sir.”
“The longer we wait, and make them come to us, the less fusactor mass they have, and the better chance we have for evading them.”
Made sense to me. “You need me for anything now?” I asked.
“No. You’ll know if I do.”
“Why’d you come here, then?”
He grinned. “To tell you how glad I was that Henjsen tripped coming out of the shuttle lock.” After the slightest pause, he added. “Get some rest. You’ll need it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Like always, when he was pressed, he turned and left. Not another word.
Henjsen—her father a frigging, muckety-muck Comity planetary rep. It figured. Everything about the mission was bastardized.
Started for the mess galley. Didn’t want to wait to go to the mess. My stomach was empty, my head light, and I wanted sleep.
Wasn’t sure I was going to sleep all that well. Wondered if I should use the comm system to find Liam. At least, I could talk to him. But I wasn’t ready for that.
69
Fitzhugh
By midmorning on fiveday, I’d still not seen any sign of Jiendra. The mess was full, and Tomas and Lizabet Marsalis had confirmed at breakfast that all the science team had been lifted off Danann.
I’d been in my work space, looking at the wall screen, still showing just the image of Danann, trying to concentrate on a better analysis—if one extraordinarily speculative—when the screen blanked, and the captain’s image replaced that of Danann. For a moment, Captain Spier said nothing, as if waiting for confirmation that she had preempted all the outlets of the ship’s public comm system. As she began her address, her voice was resonantly confident.
“The Magellan has been making preparations to leave Danann, and we had hoped to do so today. We have detected a flotilla of potentially hostile vessels stationed between us and our first Gate. For tactical reasons, we will not be leaving Danann immediately, but our departure could occur at any time, or it could be several days. Because of this uncertainty, I wanted to inform all ship’s personnel and all expedition personnel of the situation. We have well over a year’s supplies, while it is highly unlikely that the forces opposing us have any such level of resources. We intend to wait until resource and tactical considerations favor our departure and return to Hamilton system. You will, of course, be informed as matters develop.”
That was the extent of her communication. Nonetheless, I was pleased that she had made the announcement, rather than Special Deputy Minister Allerde, and that she had not included some morological phrase about us having little about which to worry. With a hostile flotilla standing off somewhere in the atrous galactic void, there was ample cause for discerning worry.
There was also the possibility that Jiendra was on some sort of standby.
I attempted to return my concentration to the unfinished analysis on the console before me, but my concentration flagged, if indeed I had even truly begun to focus, and returned to thoughts of her. While I detested even the insinuation that I might be wolflike in pursuit, there was no alternative course of action. I accessed the ship’s directory and finally located Jiendra, except that she was listed as “Chang, J. M., LT.”
I initiated comm access, but the screen remained blank, and an insipid male voice intoned, “Please leave a message.”
“This is Liam Fitzhugh. I had hoped we could continue our conversation at some point. Thank you.”
My message was stilted, but what else could I have said without being either suggestive or misleading. The veracity of the content of my communication was absolute. I did wish to talk to her, and to continue from that ambiguous position where we had last been before being interrupted by Commander Morgan.
My action in accessing her comm link, ineffectual as it might have been, allowed me to return to the analysis.
Based on the amount of resources manifested in the construction and operation of the megaplex, it was more man obvious that the beings who had constructed it operated in a culture of relative abundance. The lack of differentiation in structure sizes suggested that either their nature was either not personally and relatively competitive, or that such competitiveness, had it existed, was expressed in a fashion other than size of structures, unlike human cultures, where virtually every structure ever constructed revealed aspects of a competitive nature. Yet such massive construction also intimated that they had been anything but passive in their outlook.