“Kim, I have a lot of problems as it is. Janet hates the Others. Generalov hates clones. If you start…” He stopped short of finishing the phrase.
The girl was quiet, hugging him and hiding her face, wet with tears.
“Kim, we’re flying to Zodiac. You hear? We’ll have time to discuss all this. If push comes to shove, we’ll think of something. You could stay on Zodiac, for instance, you could take a few days off… sick leave, maybe?”
“Fighter-speshes never get sick,” Kim informed him. “Well… almost never.”
“We’ll ask Janet… surely she’ll understand your situation?”
“Probably…” Kim’s voice sounded a little calmer. “But I won’t return to Edem! I’d rather jump right out into open space!”
“Kim. We’ll think of something. But for now, please help me, okay? I need your support, friend-spesh.”
The look in Kim’s eyes, when she lifted her face to look at him, was triumphant.
“Will you ever again tell Xang that he can hit on me?”
“I said that knowing you would reject him,” said Alex, almost honestly.
“You better watch out, I might just be tempted. He’s a stud,” purred Kim.
Alex forced a laugh.
“Really? I thought you liked our engineer.”
Kim snorted. “That pink piglet? He’s still just a baby! No, he’s nice, but he’s still a kid. Generalov is much more interesting, but he isn’t interested in me… All right, friend-spesh, I’ll be going to my cabin. My stuff is all over the place. I have to anchor everything, right?”
“That’s the rule. Just in case.”
“But I won’t fly to Edem,” said Kim on her way out. Alex sat down. He wanted a drink, but in twenty minutes he had to be in charge of the ship. Besides, everything had already been cleared off the table.
He had never imagined that being a captain would entail these kinds of conversations. What a stupid tradition it was to appoint pilots to be captains! They should appoint psychologists. Or was it just his luck to have a whole crew of weirdos? Did problems like these ever come up on any other ships of the fleet?
Alex rolled up his sleeve to look at the Demon. The little devil was holding its head in its hands. It was wincing, as though it was suffering from a terrible headache.
And Alex realized that what bothered him was not so much the conversation that had just taken place, but the fact that he still had to talk to Janet. A woman who had almost become his friend and was now caught in the worst kind of trap—a conflict between her spesh duties and the program of behavior precoded into her subconscious mind.
“There’s no time,” said Alex. Got up and went to the sick bay.
The door was unlocked. Janet was sitting in a chair and holding her head in her hands, just like the little tattoo on his arm. As he entered, she looked at him and said in a quiet voice:
“The sick bay is ready for take-off and for receiving patients.”
Alex sat down on the floor in front of her. Stretched out his arm to show her the Demon.
“You see this?”
Janet nodded.
“Do you know what this is?”
“An emotion scanner… I’ve seen them…” she replied in a colorless voice. Then a look of concern appeared on her face. “What’s wrong, Captain?”
“You have a problem. You hate the Others. Generalov has a problem. He hates clones. Kim has a problem. We are under orders to fly to Edem, and she doesn’t want to go there. And I am your captain. All of your problems are my problems now.”
Janet rubbed her forehead wearily.
“Captain… Alex, don’t worry about me. I can handle it.”
“Janet, are you sure?”
“Yes, Alex. I do hate the Others, those Zzygou things especially. They were our first targets, you understand. But I can handle it. Even if I have to wait their tables.”
Alex looked searchingly at the woman.
“Everything will be fine,” she repeated, with a little more conviction in her tone. “Of course, I was shocked. I am a soldier of Eben. But even a soldier doesn’t have to rush headlong into a fight. I can control myself, Alex. Don’t worry.”
“Then I have only two problems left: Generalov and Kim.”
“I’ll try to sort it out with Kim. She seems to listen to me.”
“Thanks.” Alex lightly touched her hand. “Friend-spesh, thanks for your understanding and self-restraint. We take off in fourteen and a half minutes. I have to go.”
“Will you need me at my battle station?”
“No, not really. The space around Quicksilver Pit is well patrolled, so there’s no real danger.”
“But I’d like to be at my post, anyway.”
“All right. I’ll be glad to see you, Janet.”
Alex smiled at the woman and left the sick bay. Looked like there was one less problem to worry about. Or was there?
Janet had been convincing, but could she really control herself?
He had no other choice but to trust her word.
“Accept me.”
He became one with the ship.
And somehow, all that had been bothering him disappeared. All the problems—Kim’s, Janet’s, Puck’s—were really minor things, barely worth noticing, in comparison to the warmth of the ship’s gentle wave.
It must be very similar to love…
Too bad he couldn’t really compare the two.
His crew were specks of colored light in the darkness. His ship—his powerful body. And the ship’s consciousness was still something separate… but it was closer and more important than his own thoughts.
Could he have ever really been happy without experiencing this? Yes… Because he had been happy being just a pilot. And had his parents chosen another specialization for him, he would’ve been happy working in a factory, or demonstrating models on a podium, or collecting edible seaweed in the ocean. He would have been happy regardless, for happiness was a necessary attribute of being a spesh.
Still, how glad he was that what made him happy were the stars, and flying among them, and all these mechanisms and bionics, interwoven to form an expensive toy called a spaceship!
“Passengers, please prepare for take-off. We are leaving the surface of the planet in seven minutes.”
Alex had never before been a captain on a passenger ship. But his memory easily supplied the necessary phrases.
“Time to orbit—twelve minutes, thirty-two seconds. Time to tunnel—forty-four minutes. We will be making an intermediate jump to Gamma Snakebearer, the transport center of the third sector. After that, our route lies through New Ukraine, Heraldica, and Zodiac. Other intermediate landings are possible at the passengers’ request. Our estimated total flight time is twenty-nine hours, thirteen minutes. The crew wishes you a pleasant flight.”
He waited another ten seconds, in case there were any additional orders or questions from the passengers, and then turned off the connection.
All right. That was it. The route had been approved, and now he had complete control over the ship.
Generalov had already made the route viewable to everyone. It was the very route he had practiced plotting that morning.
Alex reached out through the eternal night of virtual space. Touched Generalov, getting his attention. Ordered:
“Private channel.”
A moment later, his consciousness split in two. He was still the root of the ship getting ready for take-off. He was watching the last preliminary tests, feeling the reactor powering up… but at the same time he stood face to face with Generalov. Around them was nothing but darkness. This talk would be just between the two of them, and no other crewmembers knew about it.