Galaxy's End: Book One Page 22

  “I can.”

  She turned to Fang. “You control the ship while I’m gone. You can reach me via Bert, but I suspect that won’t be necessary.” As she stood, she said to Bert, “Please contact Bill and have him meet me at the hatch with the fire extinguisher and cutter. He will know where they are located.”

  She left the bridge at a sedate pace, trying to relay a confident exterior to any who looked her way—and failed. Fang waited until the last moment and winked at her in amusement. She slammed the hatch behind her. A brief time later, she entered the engine room, nodded to the chief engineer while wondering how he ever got the grease off the fur over his skin, and strode to the hatch.

  Bill stood there, the two items in hand. He handed her the cutter and kept the extinguisher. The cargo space was still filled with air, the light for entry green, so she palmed the pad and waited. The hatch unsealed with the smallest of pops as the air pressure on both sides equalized.

  She pulled it open and stepped over the knee-knocker. Inside, the lights came on with her movement. She said, “Bert, how many cargo pods and where are they?”

  He rapidly spat the coordinates in standard hull ID, a combination of structural frames from the bow followed by degrees on a three-sixty division, and the last set of numbers that was the distance from the center hub. There were two cargo pods. Not together. That was odd since cargo pods were generally stored nearby for ease of removal at delivery.

  She asked, “Different destinations?”

  “Yes,” Bert said. “Two worlds. Both on the milk-run for this ship.”

  A milk-run was a standard route a tramp ship might take, the same planets in the same order. She had assumed all cargo pods were of a single machine or load of equipment. Two delivery locations suggested something else; however, nothing came to mind. It was important and would remain an open question as she headed for the nearest cargo pod.

  It was a large one. Stacked on top were more than a dozen smaller ones fitted together like an interlocking puzzle to avoid shifting while in transit. Even the smallest was too large for the pair of them to lift.

  She told Bill, “Go get the engineer to help us.”

  Meanwhile, she put the cutter aside and crossed her arms over her breast as she stood and thought. If necessary, she would cut each pod open and remove the contents until she came to the one on the bottom. However, the rails mounted on the ceiling above indicated a method of moving them that she was not familiar with.

  McL, the engineer approached as if expecting her to punch him. Probably the expression she wore, and her general demeanor rightfully gave it to him. She quickly said, “Don’t mind me. How do you move your cargo pods?” She jammed a thumb into the air at the rails crisscrossing above.

  “Ah,” he said proudly. “Built that myself, Missy Captain. Numbers on fore and aft walls, letters on port and starboard.”

  She glanced at the walls and realized she should have understood without asking. “Not the grid, but how?”

  He reached for a unit in a holder mounted beside the door. The buttons were self-explanatory, front-back, fore-aft, and the other buttons were up and down. Slings went to the eyebolts on each pod. As he pushed a set of buttons, a winch approached on the rails and paused directly overhead, which was C-6.

  There were aisles open enough for the smaller pods and near the hatch was enough room for the larger ones. He noticed her gaze and said, “More room aft if you need it. Might take a bit of work to move one back there, though. We got a lot of cargo on this trip.”

  She accepted the proffered unit and said, “You can stay if you want. I’d prefer you to. We might need some help.”

  He hesitated, then said, “Can that voice that comes over the speakers record you ordering me to help you under the penalty of death? Meaning, if it ever comes to it, I can show that I was made to do it, or you’d toss me out the airlock.”

  Smart. Captain Stone liked that. She said, “Bert, record this for us.” She waited so the order would separate from the conversation, “McL, you will either help us open the cargo pods or I’ll chuck you out that airlock over there. As the new captain, I’m giving you a direct order.”

  The engineer said, “Send a copy of that to my mailbox.”

  She smiled. That last was so she didn’t erase it as soon as they finished. Again, smart.

  He said, “Let me see the coordinates for what you want.”

  After peering at them for a moment, he pointed next to where Bill stood, still holding the torch. The engineer said, “Yup, the bottom one. Big sucker.”

  Captain Stone said, “We don’t have to move it, just those on top.”

  McL turned to Bill. “You going to just stand there and hold that thing while I do all the work? Put it down and look here how to attach the slings to the eyebolts.

  In a brief time, the first and smallest of the cargo pods dangled in the air and slid to one side, where it was lowered to the floor.

  There were several hiccups and one near accident from a swinging pod before they cleared the pile. Only the large one that had been the base remained.

  Captain Stone retrieved the torch and began cutting as Bill stood ready with the fire extinguisher. Other than the loss of air in a spaceship, a fire was the next concern. More than one ship had its entire crew suffocate or die from smoke inhalation. There is nowhere to run for clean air.

  After cutting the lock, she sat the cutter aside and slid the retaining bar to one side. It was time to find out what was so valuable.

  She expected to find advanced electronics, or computers, or detection equipment to allow ships to follow each other while inside wormholes. Even advanced weapons. Whatever, it had to be immensely valuable, not only because of the prohibitive cost to ship it but because the contents were why three ships had chased them.

  After removing the side panel, there were smaller plastic containers a half meter cube, all sides equal. She lifted one out with the help of Bill and sat it on the deck plate. They lifted another lid and revealed rugged square plastic tubes, sealed with tan-colored stoppers at one end. Each was the diameter of her wrist and clear.

  Inside were small marbles inside a jell. One of the containers held a thick viscous liquid. The cap was blue.

  There were more cubes. She chose one at random and found the same things inside. Then another and another.

  None of them spoke. All three were bewildered.

  Captain Stone stood and stretched her back and said, “Let’s see what’s in the other one.”

  They found the same thing. Containers stacked six high, with rows six wide, of identical containers. Each of the smaller units held layers of six containers, each layer with one that had a blue cap. Nothing else.

  Captain stone sat on a crate and asked, “Any ideas?”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Kat

  I knew worry when I saw it. Both Fang and Captain Stone were worried, and that worried me. Fang was busy with the computer inputs located at his flipper-tips, and I watched until his tongue snatched the next insect that suddenly flew past. I quickly whispered, “Bert, ping me once if I need to be upset or worried.”

  A single ping sounded from the speaker overhead. Fang’s crunching of the insect probably prevented him from hearing it.

  Okay, Bert and I were worried.

  The ship moved inside a wormhole and whenever or wherever we exited it, a pair of ships from the other end of human-occupied space would too. They followed us. What would happen then was anyone’s guess.

  We couldn’t outmaneuver them. They were faster than us and presumably armed.

  Captain Stone believed exiting in the center of a secret military complex where a war was in progress was our best hope. When I thought of it like that, I probably needed a better word than worry to describe it. Her solution sounded insane at first . . . and worse after that. Three ships spilling out of a wormhole at a secret spaceship construction location might get all of them blasted before we had a chance to explain.

&
nbsp; For some odd reason, my thoughts returned to Chance, the steward. There was still more to him than I knew, and I believed he knew far more than he was saying. Perhaps if I went to him with part of the truth, he’d help us, if only to protect himself. At the worst, he’d begin to worry like me.

  But the truth was, he had been an empath for a lot longer than me and knew more. That was not a lot. I had no training and little experience. Hinting someone should share an apple is a lot different than having our lives depend on what happened when we entered a warzone uninvited—and with a tall tale of an alien invasion as our only hope.

  Fang said, “Nice try.”

  “What?” I answered in my most innocent voice.

  “Distract me and speak to Bert and have him respond with that ping. It was a good plan. Unsuccessful, but I applaud your attempt. Now, what’s going on?”

  “That steward is what’s going on. He knows more about being an empath than I. Much more. And I think he also knows, at least, part of the answers about our cargo and those two ships following us.”

  Fang turned three sets of eyestalks in my direction, and his little pointy ears swiveled in my direction. “I know something of how to encourage beings of many species to share their knowledge.”

  My imagination ran wild. I didn’t like what it came up with. I said, “I’m thinking of taking another run at him.”

  Fang didn’t respond. I lost myself in the wonderland of the bridge that hurled us through space. The ship was old. Older than I had believed. There were places on the deck where feet had worn a slight hollow in the deck plates. The screens and computer modules were relatively new, however, there were holes in the metal walls where predecessors had been mounted. There was no way of telling how many.

  “Fang?” I asked, “How old is this ship?”

  “Old. Hard to say more, but I can tell you the engines are replacement, as is most of the equipment. Since this ship only spends a fraction of its time on planets, the hull won’t corrode or rust. When needed, a coat of liquid metal alloy is applied to the outside to repair the micro-abrasions gathered in space but again, there is no way to measure how many times that had happened.”

  “A hundred years?” I persisted.

  Fang snorted, “Much older than that.”

  “Who built it?” I asked.

  “Originally? No idea. Not my people or yours. The doors are too short for humans, too tall for me. The passages are narrow, the cabins small. I think a race smaller, and from the solid construction, one that intended to use it for a long time. Before you ask, maybe they did.”

  I realized the ceiling was lower than those of buildings on Roma, and he was right about the narrow halls and small cabins. Wondering about the original builders made me sad. Where were they and why were there no records?

  “I’m going to see Chance.”

  Along the way, I took careful notice of the interior of the ship, still searching for elusive answers. Only days ago, I’d been on Roma, the only home I’d ever known, although there was now the possibility that I’d spent time on Prager Four.

  Now we were on a spaceship and that fact hadn’t penetrated enough to become a belief. I woke expecting to be in a ragged tent on Roma. The ship around me might have some age, but it was quiet and smooth. The equipment in good working order.

  Most importantly, I could stop by the galley and order anything on the auto-menu. Anything at all. Any time. Then a steward dressed in all white would deliver it to my table with a smile. After that, I had a bed with clean linens. And I had my two best friends with me. The good stuff didn’t end there. Captain Stone wanted us, all of us, to work on her ship as crew.

  What could be better?

  Well, there was Fang. I liked him. He also scared me. It was hard to put him into a category because he was not a friend, but more than an acquaintance. He was competent on the bridge, seemed to know a lot about almost everything, and acted as if he was equal to the captain.

  Maybe that was it—the problem with placing him into a position in our group. He was more than the rest of us, except Bert, of course. I could accept him but for the one item. He was a danger. He didn’t seem to hesitate in using weapons or fighting.

  That was odd because Fang was a foot tall when in his normal squatting position, his body as wide in proportion as a frog, and his head was outsized, even for a frog. He awkwardly flopped when he moved.

  But there were times when he moved with remarkable speed. It was as if the rest was for show, or to lull his opponents. When he wanted, he moved far faster than me. That also made him seem more dangerous.

  I don’t want to be one of those who attribute human abilities to aliens without knowing their own. I like to think I judge all by who they are and what they do. That’s the goal. But when you are unsure of someone, it’s hard.

  I had reached the door to Chance’s room, which is the room where we placed him. Bert hadn’t said he’d left, so I assumed he was there. I’d been thinking about Fang instead of what to say to Chance.

  I knocked.

  He called, “Come in.”

  When I opened the door hesitantly, the man was lying on the lower bed, his fingers interlocked behind his head, his legs crossed at the ankles. His socks were clean, I noticed. That said something positive.

  He made no effort to get up. There was no chair. I could climb into the bed above his, but then I couldn’t see his face while we talked.

  I sat on the floor with my back to the door, my legs crossed.

  He hadn’t initiated any conversation.

  I sighed inwardly. He was probably waiting for me to tell him about the subject of my visit. I said, “You are a problem. We don’t know what to do with you.”

  “You could let me go.”

  “You killed your captain. From all I hear, a good officer. You did it to help your family, but does that excuse your actions?”

  He looked at me over the tops of his toes. “You could say that.”

  “I could also say you killed him for money, an innocent man. I could also say that you cooperated in smuggling advanced technology into the human sphere as a means of conquest.”

  He smiled wanly. When he spoke, his voice was softer, “I don’t think any of you are killers. I feel safe, for now.”

  I gave it some thought because my ideas were similar. “You’re right, except for Fang. I think he’s dangerous. And some of the crew who were close to the captain might want to even things up.”

  “You’ll protect me,” he said slyly.

  “Let me tell you about that,” I answered in the same tone. “We are going to drop out of the wormhole at a nexus in the middle of nowhere. The only thing there is a military base where they are building warships.”

  He looked puzzled.

  I continued, “You see, two ships that belong to the group that hired you, are right behind us. They will drop into normal space when we do, not expecting to be surrounded by a fleet of warships.”

  “Why would you do that?” he said as he sat up.

  “All three ships will either be captured or destroyed. We’ll exit with our radio begging for help and protection. We’ll tell them those two ships followed us within the wormhole, so they have technology aboard that can change the course of their war.”

  He settled back. “They will want to take you, prisoner, not destroy the ships.”

  “Take us, prisoner. That includes you. We won’t hide what you did. It is a military outpost. Killing your captain is a major crime, I’d think.”

  That sly smile came again. “So, you’re here to bargain with me?”

  “Nope.”

  The smile faded.

  I said, “Chance, I just thought I should tell you the truth and we can all see where that goes. We might not have a say. Or we might. I came for a different reason.”

  “What?”

  “You, Captain Stone, and I share empathic abilities. We all have family on Prager Four. We might even be related because the population there is so small
. Have you thought about that?”

  He shook his head.

  “For me, I believe I left Prager Four when I was a small child. I have no idea of who my parents were, or what happened to them. All I know is that I grew up by myself on Roma and that I have a little empathic ability. I have been too scared to use it, had no way to learn, and I’m here as one empath asking another for help.”

  “No deal?”

  “Oh, I could promise you to escape, but we both know when the military comes aboard, assuming they do not destroy us, all bets are off. But if that’s what it takes to get you to help me understand, I’ll promise to try and keep you alive.”

  He closed his eyes and said nothing for a long time, then his eyes opened, and he said, “Would you promise to contact my people and tell them what you can?”

  I nodded. Captain Stone had already mentioned she wanted to visit Prager Four and do some research. Contacting his family was a natural avenue for us to travel. “No matter how this comes out, or what information you do or do not give to me, if you provide me with the contact information, I’ll be sure they get it.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “How to use the power. The distance. What makes it work better? How can I mask my contacts? How much can I change in a person’s mind?”

  He chuckled. “I know only a little. I believe you’re already perceptive enough to understand most—at least, what I know. But I’m game.”

  I said, “Okay, I understand a little. For instance, I know that I can’t make people do what they don’t want to.”

  “Not true,” he said flatly as he shook his head.

  That stunned me. My mouth fell open, but no words came forth.

  He saw my response and continued, “Think about this: a man was bitten by a tensi-spider from Radnor as a young man, no he was attacked by dozens of them. They pinned him to the ground and devoured his left leg, which took three days and nights. They started on his right hand when he was rescued, and all the spiders were killed. He still dreams of them. The sight of a silk web sets him shaking in fear.”

  “I’m thinking I am scared of tensi-spiders.”