Confluence

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: DOMINIQUE RADKO

The second crate of iced Gippian shellfish got them down to Aeolus, the largest Redmond world. They left Leonard happily talking about the fate of the other crate—the one he hadn’t delivered to Redmond. Tonight, the crew on Captain Engen’s ship would dine on fresh Gippian shellfish.

“With Lancian wine,” Han had said. “That’s what you normally eat them with. “Golden Lake wine from the Radko”—he stumbled over that, recovered—“Estates is best.” He looked at Radko, carefully this time.

“I don’t know about Lancian wine,” Leonard said. “We’ll use anything we’ve got. Now, if you want to avoid official entry, you should slip out the side door here. Bergin, down the end, takes a flat thousand-credit fee.”

“Thank you,” Radko said.

Bergin dressed like he made a lot of money out of people entering illegally. It was hard to believe he hadn’t attracted the attention of the authorities. Then, he probably had. It was as good a way as any of keeping track of illegal aliens on your world.

“Use these noncitizen chits when you purchase anything.” He held out four discs, and waited.

“Thanks.” Radko handed over chits worth four thousand credits and received the IDs in return. “We’re looking for a clinic. Can you recommend one that won’t ask questions?”

He paused. She held out a two-hundred-credit chit.

“The more you pay, the better quality advice you get.”

“She’s only asking a question,” Han said.

Radko added another two hundred.

“Fabro’s clinic. Two blocks down. They’re discreet. They take chits.” Bergin pocketed the chits. “Welcome to the center of the universe.” He smiled at Han. “It’s a pleasure doing business with you.”

Han scowled.

Radko led them out of the building. The wind nearly blew them away. She’d forgotten the wind. She would have liked to walk faster, but they had to move at van Heel’s pace. Van Heel was trying to hurry, but it was obvious every step was painful, and pushing against the wind didn’t help.

“I’m sorry I—”

“Save it, van Heel. There’s no need to apologize for being injured in the line of duty. Not unless you were being stupid.” Then Radko smiled at the other woman. “It will be nice to have you whole again, I admit.”

“You think it will be nice.” Van Heel paused. “I can’t wait.”

“Is this the first time you’ve been injured?”

Van Heel nodded.

She was holding up well.

“Have you ever been injured?” Chaudry asked.

“A few times. I had a dislocated shoulder and a hairline fracture in my ankle not that long ago.” Radko smiled at the memory. “What they call friendly fire.”

Had Ean accidentally injured any others on her team? Bhaksir and the others didn’t know when to step aside.

“Someone on your own side? But that’s—”

“He was saving our lives at the time.” And the Alliance. Not to mention acquiring a fleet of spaceships for them. “You’ll like him, Chaudry.”

She missed him.

Four hundred credits didn’t buy much of a medical center. It was clean, but the prefab walls were full of holes and the equipment so old that Radko didn’t recognize the model.

“I’d almost rather stay injured,” van Heel said.

The medic looked tired, and his scrubs, while clean, had a brown stain down one side. Someone had bled on him, and he hadn’t gotten rid of the stain.

“Blaster wound,” he said, as if he saw them every day. “You’re lucky it hasn’t turned septic.”

Chaudry bit off a protest, then meekly followed the medic into the room. Radko and Han came with them.

“I don’t normally do this with an audience.” Yet he didn’t kick them out. He swabbed van Heel’s injury, then dropped the swab into a scanner and inspected the readings. “At least it’s clean. Someone knows something about cleaning wounds.”

Radko silently pointed to Chaudry.

The medic nodded and disinfected a patch of van Heel’s uninjured skin, then sliced a small piece off. The disinfectant must have had numbing properties, for van Heel didn’t complain.

What happened if your whole skin was too badly burned to take a starter sample from?

“Regen takes hours. There’s no point staying around to watch it.” The medic put the sample into nutrient, then slid the sample and nutrient into a small opening on the side of the regenerator.

Radko got the hint. “We’ll leave you here, Chaudry, while we look around. Call us if anything happens.” A proper regeneration required three sessions. She’d bet none of this doctor’s patients ever stayed for more than one.

Radko used the noncitizen chit Bergin had given her, and more credit chits, to hire an aircar. The money was running out faster than she’d like, but she didn’t want to use her own credit unless she had to.

The aircar had a massive engine and enormous stabilizers. They found the reason for them as soon as they took off, for the buffeting wind was strong.

The first thing Radko did when they were in the air was bring up the satellite views of the street TwoPaths Engineering was on.

The buildings here were buttressed up against the castle wall. Had it been Lancia, Radko would have assumed that TwoPaths was part of the family of the Factor of the Lesser Gods because Lancia would never allow a commercial company—especially not one from another world—so close to the castle. All it would take was some well-placed explosive—they had some with them—and they could blow a hole in the wall and get into the palace.

She didn’t need to zoom in to see that the TwoPaths building was well protected, for it had the characteristic wavy outline of a building covered with a security netfield. Which meant she wouldn’t get inside without blowing the net. It was a lot of security for a site TwoPaths listed as a warehouse.

Lucky for them, a net generator was big—it worked on similar principles to a Pandora field diffuser—and the generator itself was normally situated outside. Not only that, people who relied on such nets tended to think they were enough security.

They wouldn’t have much time once the net was down. TwoPaths would have a private security firm on call.

There was a yard on the east side, with a generator-sized structure close to the wall. There would be a door behind that, for someone had to service the generator.

So, get in, take out the generator, and enter via the back door.

Abutting the yard was another shop. They could blow the wall, but they couldn’t hide the fact they had been there. They could misdirect, however, and make people think it was an assault on the palace.

Radko turned her attention to the shop next door. It was a sweet shop that—according to the travel guides—was famed throughout the Worlds of the Lesser Gods. Radko had never heard of it.

She clicked off the screen, and said to Han, “Let’s be tourists.”

They used the aircar to hop from one major tourist spot to another around the Factor’s palace, checking out potential escape routes.

“The wind in this place,” Han said, as the aircar rocked. “I’d hate to live here.”

Radko was glad of the powerful engine and stabilizers; otherwise, they would have been blown from one side of Aeolus to the other.

“It’s huge,” Han said. “Almost as large as the palace at Baoshan.”

It was. She landed the aircar as close as she could, and they explored further on foot.

TwoPaths Engineering was a blank, featureless building. There were no windows on the lower level and only a few on the levels above. The blue shimmer of the security net was noticeable here on the ground. The street was full of cameras. They’d never get in unannounced. Radko’s initial plan, using the sweet shop, looked the most promising.

The line for the sweet shop was out the door.

Radko had plenty of time to check the location of the cameras. There was one on the outside of the shop, and one camera from TwoPaths facing the shop door.

A discreet plaque outside the TwoPaths door stated, THESE PREMISES ARE PROTECTED BY MES SECURITY.

Once inside the sweet shop, she could see a rear door behind the counter which led to a cool room or a kitchen. A conveyor belt of sweets rolled in from out the back, continuously replenishing the supply. The servers were human, part of the archaic charm of the shop. As she waited to be served, Radko looked up, pretending to be bored. There were two cameras, both of them aimed toward the counter.

How much protection did TwoPaths have out the back?

What was she looking for when she got in? The report itself? Or evidence of what Redmond was doing there? Both, if she could get it, and most importantly of all, information on why they expected to have access to a twelve soon.

They took a room in a hotel close to the TwoPaths building. It was a tourist hotel, horrendously overpriced because of its proximity to the castle. Radko checked the street views. No one went into or came out of TwoPaths Engineering.

Van Heel came back whole and new-skinned.

Chaudry was pleased with the result. “But you will be careful,” he said. “Really, you should have three sessions of regen. This is only the first.”

“I can use my arm,” van Heel said, flexing it. “And it doesn’t hurt anymore. I’m happy.”

Chaudry should never have been a soldier. He should have been a doctor. Instead, he’d be a linesman. But a linesman could also be a doctor. If they had linesmen who were engineers, why not linesmen who were doctors?

They ate a room-service dinner. On the Lancastrian Princess it would be midmorning. Ean would be training linesmen or looking at alien ships.

Don’t think about her old life.

“Here’s what we do,” Radko said. “Tonight, we break into TwoPaths Engineering by going through the back of the sweet shop.” She sketched a rough plan on her comms. “I saw three cameras. They looked like basic Schwetters to me. We need to disable them, set them onto a loop of some kind. Can we do that?”

Van Heel nodded. “It will be easier if we know which security firm they’re with.”

“MES.”

“Good. I can hack them. What else?”

“TwoPaths has a security net. I think the generator is in the yard out back. We’ll have to blow a hole in the wall to get to it, but it shouldn’t be hard.”

“Blowing a hole in the wall,” Han said. “Won’t someone hear us?”

Radko patted the box of explosive. “You’ve never used this stuff before. It’s quiet.”

“I’ve never done any real soldiering before this trip. Except marching.”

“Me either,” Chaudry said. “I’m thinking maybe Stores wasn’t so bad, after all.”

If Chaudry chose to adopt his line heritage, he’d never work in Stores again.

They spent the rest of the day making plans.

Radko insisted they all take time out to rest. She sent Han and Chaudry off first, afterward van Heel and herself. When she woke, it was midnight. The wind sounded as if it had eased a little. Van Heel was still asleep, and Han was yawning over his screen.

“Where’s Chaudry?”

Han stifled another yawn. “Balcony.”

Radko went out to talk to him. “How do you feel?”

He leaned on the railing and looked up at the stars. “I didn’t see the stars on Redmond. This is only the second time I have seen stars from another world.”

The first time would have been when he was with House of Isador. That was on Centaurus, which was close to Old Earth. Radko had seen the stars on Centaurus. They were a long way away.

“Nothing compares to seeing stars in space. Down here on planet, it’s nothing really.” Especially when obscured by city lights.

“When I joined the fleet, I thought that’s what I’d be seeing. Stars in space. Other worlds. Fighting.”

“Yet you ended up in Stores.”

“It’s funny, isn’t it. When I was a boy, all I wanted to be was a doctor. Until—” He broke off, and looked away.

Radko started to softly sing the fleet anthem. “The stars my destination.”

He took up the chorus with her. “I rise. I rise.”

His voice was clear and light. Radko hadn’t needed confirmation, but this was it. He was definitely a level one.

The song died away. Radko let the silence extend.

“Stores isn’t so bad,” Chaudry said.

Yet he could have been a linesman.

“Tell me, why did you choose to fail line certification?”

Chaudry stiffened. “You don’t choose to fail. You certify or you don’t.”

“You’re a one, Chaudry. You couldn’t have failed. Not unless you did it deliberately. More to the point, once you failed, why didn’t you go back to medical studies?”

She let the silence extend again.

Chaudry turned back to watch the stars. “Do you have a partner out there, back on that ship you came from?”

It was a clumsy attempt to change the subject. It wasn’t going to work, but she answered it anyway, to keep him talking. “There’s someone I like, but he doesn’t know it yet.” And he never would, either, for Michelle had first rights. And she missed him more than anything right now. “How about you?”

He shook his head. “There was a girl at fleet academy, but she just thought I could introduce her to linesmen. She didn’t know—”

Radko turned her back to the stars. She could guess. “That a failed linesman is nothing to a certified linesman.”

“Yes.” It was just a whisper.

“You’re not a failed linesman, Chaudry. You’re a one.”

“When I made line training, my parents were so proud of me. They cautioned me, of course, for not all linesmen made certification. But they were so proud. But a level-one linesman is nothing. Worse than nothing.” He ran his hands through his hair. “I knew what I was long before the ceremony. I could only ever feel line one. I couldn’t do that to my parents. It was better they didn’t know.”

“How do you fail line certification?”

“You pretend you’re trying, but you’re not doing anything really.”

Level ones were rare. How many others had done the same thing? “And you didn’t want to be a doctor anymore?”

“I wanted to die.”

So he’d become a soldier. What was that old joke they used to tell when she was in training? Join the fleet; see the galaxy; shoot people. Or have them shoot you. Which explained the comment on Chaudry’s psych profile that he wasn’t fit for war duty.

“But they put me in Stores.”

Radko smiled at the plaintive tone. “At least we have decent psych people at headquarters.” She turned back to look at the stars, in the direction of the Haladean cluster. It wasn’t bright enough to see, but she knew it was there. “Have you seen your family since?”

“I pretended I was away on training last time they came to Baoshan.”

“Because you failed them?”

“You probably think it’s silly.”

“I failed my parents, too.” Would she ever see them again? Did she care if she didn’t, except as guilt if Yu did something in revenge? Thank the lines Jai the Younger and Hua were close as siblings. Surely their mother, Dowager Empress Jai the Elder, could be relied on to save her youngest daughter if need be. Radko hoped someone like Vega had apprised Jai of the possibility. “My ship is my family.”

“And you lost that when you came to us.”

She hadn’t thought about Sattur Dow and Yu until now. “Probably.” Vega wouldn’t be able to fix it. She banged her fist on the railing hard enough to hurt.

“I’m sorry,” Chaudry said quietly.

One man shouldn’t have that much power. “He destroyed my life.” He was trying to destroy the New Alliance. He was trying to destroy Abram and Michelle. If he did that, he’d destroy Ean, too, and everyone on the Lancastrian Princess.

If he did that, she would destroy him.

Radko took a shaky breath. “Sorry, Chaudry. I’ve been trying not to think about it.”

“Sometimes it helps to talk.”

Said the man who’d joined the fleet because he wanted to kill himself. “Do you still want to be a doctor?”

Chaudry stretched. “We should go inside.”

She laughed and reached out to stop him. “Don’t change the subject, Chaudry. This is important.”

“Why?”

“Because a doctor who is also a linesman is a rare find indeed.”

“Only a one.” It came out bitter.

“Especially a one, since line one shows the health of the whole ship. A doctor who is a level-one linesman would be perfect.” And very much in demand. Chaudry would have his pick of ships in the Lancian fleet. But he’d go to the Eleven or the Confluence. She knew that already.

“Line one shows the state of other lines,” Chaudry corrected. “You don’t need a doctor to fix lines. You need a linesman.”

Radko smiled, grim and satisfied in the dark, and lonely, too, for she missed her ship. She missed her job. She missed her linesman.

“It shows the state of the whole ship, Chaudry. Human and line. Sure, you need a linesman to fix lines, but as for the rest, that’s only partially right. That’s what the cartel teaches you, and the cartels are wrong.”

“Wrong?”

He was a linesman. He couldn’t hide the hope in his voice. Linesmen, especially single-level linesmen, always wanted to believe there was something more.

Radko smiled again. “No line is superior to any other. We have learned so much about the lines in the last six months. Think about what you want for the future, Chaudry. At the end of this assignment, I’ll ask again. If you want to work with the lines, or in medicine, or both, we’ll do everything in our power to make it happen. We need people like you.”

She turned and led the way inside.