Redline the Stars

12

Ali Kamil quickened his pace until he came up beside Rael.

"I'm sorry," he told her quietly. "I was navigating right off the charts in there."

"So was I," she replied' bitterly. "Firing off my mouth like that was inexcusable. I knew what you all had been through."

"It was no more than you had."

He frowned and stepped aside to allow Dane and Rip to pass. Sometimes, he thought sourly, finding a place to have a private conversation aboard a starship was about as easy as netting an asteroid made of pure platinum, at least for lowly apprentices lacking the luxury of a private office or work cabin.

The Medic sensed that something more was weighing on him, but Kamil was the last person to broach it in the busy corridor. "I want to check on some seedlings," she said.

"You could lift out the germination trays for me if you've got the time and don't mind."

"I'm happy to assist, Doctor Cofort."

Hael breathed deeply of the rich air in the hydro. It was her favorite place here, even as the one on the Roving Star had been when she had been serving under her brother's command. All it needed was some lavender ...

The Engineer-apprentice walked over to the tall bank of germination trays. "Which one?" he inquired.

"The top two. You've got enough inches on me that we won't have to get out the ladder."

It took only a few seconds to carefully remove the trays and set them on the nearby work bench.

He peered at the closely spaced, neat rows of minute plants, each of which bore two leaves. "What are they?" he asked curiously. "There are a couple of different kinds, I think, though it's hard to be sure. They're so small."

"Most just put their heads up this morning, the others yesterday afternoon. They won't be readily identifiable for a while yet. — One box contains tarragon, the other gray pepper. Mr. Mura wants them for the galley. He'll be trying some new spices as well for more variety."

"That's always welcome."

Both fell silent while Rael checked the moisture and nutrient content of the growth medium and examined the seedlings themselves. The time to catch trouble was early, at the first sign, before it could develop into a full-blown problem that might sweep the whole little crop.

At last she stood up. "All our infants are doing well," she announced. "You may return them to their cradles, Mr. Kamil."

The man complied. When he was finished, he leaned back against the bank and studied her speculatively. "How is it that you're so good at everything. Doctor. Or so many things?" he amended. His own chief did not sing her praises the way Tau and Mura did, but then Johan Stotz rarely praised anyone. Just keeping one's position without having one's head verbally removed on a daily basis was compliment enough coming from him.

"I just sort of picked things up along the way. I was interested, of course, and I wanted to be of real use and not just so much inert cargo until I finally managed to officially qualify for something."

"Ah, yes. You were raised and trained in the comforting bosom of your clan."

"I was lucky," she agreed seriously, "especially since I love Trade." Her face clouded suddenly. "But, Alt, I've never been on my own, never once had the chance to see if I could pull it by myself. I was never even physically at Training Pool. All my classes, even my medical courses, were taped, with clinical experience gained at accredited hospitals wherever we planeted."

The apprentice gave her a sharp look. "That's allowed?"

"Aye, of course. The ongoing testing is stringent, with a ten percent higher grade required for passing."

"Which I presume was never a problem."

"No, not really. Don't forget, I had a shipload of captive tutors all eager to help out."

"What about the Psycho?"

"I never asked for a ship assignment since I was staying with my own clan, but classification was compulsory, of course. — Free Trader all the way."

"Not even a shot at the Companies?" he teased.

Rael laughed. "I wouldn't last twenty-four hours on a Company ship!"

Her expression darkened again, not pleasantly. "I didn't manage so marvelously on the Mermaid, did I?"

"You cut your losses and ran, which was as much as anyone could have done under the circumstances." His voice softened. She had not concealed that her failure to secure the berth cut her. "You'll make out. You know Trade work and don't mind doing it."

It was a new role for Kamil, offering comfort and support. He stopped speaking for a moment, not quite knowing where else to go with it.

Unless . . . Cofort had picked up on that incredible murder plot.

"Doctor," he said suddenly, before he could give himself a chance to back down, "can you keep your mouth shut?"

"I'm a Medic. That comes with the job. — I don't expect you to fasmit our recent conversation to the universe at large, either, you know."

"I won't." He eyed her gravely. "What do you think of Canuche of Halio?"

"I detest her," the woman replied in complete surprise.

"I like gloriously wild planets or else beautifully civilized ones with powerful conservation and anticruelty laws, all full of furry, feathered, and scaled creatures, not malodorous chemical stews."

"Maybe there's a galaxy more wrong with Canuche than that."

Rael Cofort's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, Alt?" she asked quietly. She had never seen him deadly serious before, but he was now with that softly voiced suggestion.

The Engineer-apprentice did not respond for almost a full minute. "Maybe I don't know," he said at the end of that time. "I just don't want to wind up in the clutches of the psychomedics as straight Whisperer bait or worse."

"I'm no psychomedic, and I have been around the star- lanes long enough to be aware of some pretty odd things, odd enough not to dismiss an unlikely-sounding theory outright."

Kamil turned away from her. "A number of people have wondered how I managed to survive the Crater War given the fact that I'd only just started school when our community got hit."

When she made no answer, he steeled himself and went on. "I woke up that night, a bit after midnight, terrified, in a cold-sweat panic. If I'd been older, better able to think, I'd have awakened my parents, but that would've ended me.

I'd have been soothed, put back to bed, and been blown to bits with the rest. As it was, I simply ran. The fire ladder was outside my window. I went down it, took to my heels, and so great was my fear that I kept going until I was outside the town limits before it eased up enough to let exhaustion take over. By that time, the bombs were already falling. I was the sole survivor out of thirty thousand and some odd people.

"No one discovered that for some time to come. I was usually hungry and always cold, but I scrounged enough to get by and spent most of my time in hiding for the next couple of years. Something inside me told me to keep away from people. They'd try to help, maybe, but they'd stop me from running if I had to get out fast again.

"I did, too, twice more from air raids and twice from those butchering... When they advanced through our area and when they were being whipped back at last.

"After that, things got quieter. There were still dangers to be faced, but they weren't on the same scale, and I'd learned to look out for those on my own. I didn't get the same kind of warning against them."

Alt began pacing, as if the act of movement helped him to clarify his thoughts. "When I reached puberty, something else started, and that's continued. Whenever I come onto a site where something really bad or some enormous tragedy occurred, no matter how far back, I feel this great weight, this sorrow, settle, not on my shoulders, my body, but on my spirit, my soul as it were. I didn't feel it in that alley—it's got to have a bigger scope than that, I think—but I felt it where the Heaven's Hope crashed, killing all those people. I felt it in the ruins on Limbo and in the Big Burn on Terra, though I made damn sure I kept quiet about it.

Besides, we were in too much trouble of our own at the time to be worrying about the problems of the past."

He risked a look at the Medic. She was standing spear straight, her attention fixed on him as if by compulsion.

The woman drew a deep breath. "You sense the same about Canuche?"

Kamil gave her a grim, bleak smile. "Doctor, I have to actually be on site to feel anything. Aye, I feel it now. I felt it at the moment we entered the outer atmosphere of this accursed planet. Worse, for the first time since those days in the Crater War, the panic's back. — It's with me all the time. Sometimes it's all I can do not to storm the bridge and set the Queen's controls to lift for anywhere as long as it's not here."

He gripped himself. "Canuche of Halio's one big disaster, one huge tragedy. Her past reeks of it, and her future's shadowed by more of the same. This is a true jinx world, and, Doctor Rael Cofort, there's not a thing either of us can do about it, because no one, on-world or off, is going to believe one word I've said, not to the extent of taking any action to get the Solar Queen away from it. Business will be conducted as usual in the usual amount of time, and I just pray to every god in the Federation that the inevitable does not happen before we do finally lift."