Singularity Sky

The Admirals Man

His Majesty's battlecruiser Lord Vanek lay at rest, sixty kilometers from the Klamovka naval beanstalk.

Running lights blinked red and blue along its flanks; the double-headed eagle ensign of the admiral’s flag winked in green outline just above the main missile launch platform. Kurtz had been piped aboard two hours earlier; soon the ship would be ready to fly.

Rachel Mansour worked hard at suppressing the treacherous grin of satisfaction that kept threatening to escape. The reaction she’d elicited from the security goons at the entrance to the base almost made up for the preceding three months of isolation and paranoia. They’d barely managed to hold her up before her phone call to the embassy dragged a flustered lieutenant commander out to blush red and stammer in front of her. When he’d half questioned her intent, she’d rammed her credentials down his throat with gusto; he escorted her with her luggage directly to the shuttlecraft for transfer to the battlecruiser, shuddering slightly and glancing over his shoulder all the way. (Evidently self-propelled shipping chests were yet another technology that the New Republic shunned.) Ludmilla Jindrisek, the cover identity she’d been using for the past month, had dissolved beneath the morning shower; Rachel Mansour, Special Agent, UN Standing Committee on Multilateral Interstellar Disarmament, stepped out of it. Ludmilla Jindrisek simpered, wore fashionable dresses, and deferred to wise male heads; Special Agent Mansour had started her career in bomb disposal (defusing terrorist nukes and disassemblers), graduated to calling in naval strikes on recalcitrant treaty-breakers, and wore a black paramilitary uniform designed specifically to impress militaristic outworlder hicks. It was, she noted, interesting to observe the effect the change of costume had on people, especially as she held her notional rank through equivalence, rather than actual military service. Meanwhile she watched her fellow passengers waiting under the beady eye of Chief Petty Officer Moronici.

The airlock door finally rolled open. “Attention!” barked the CPO. The ratings waiting in the bay stood sharply to attention. An officer ducked through the lock and straightened up: Moronici saluted, and he returned the gesture, ignoring Rachel.

“Very good there,” said the officer. “Chief Moronici, get these kids aboard. Don’t bother waiting for me, I’ve got business that’ll keep me here until the next run.” He glanced at Rachel. “You. What are you doing here?”

Rachel pointed her pass at him. “Diplomatic corps. I’m attached to the Admiral’s staff, by special order of Archduke Michael, Lieutenant.”

The Lieutenant gaped. “But you’re a—”

“—colonel in the United Nations of Earth Security Council combined armed forces. What part of ‘by special order of Archduke Michael’ don’t you understand? Are you going to stand there gaping, or are you going to invite me aboard?”

“Urgh. Um, yes.” The Lieutenant disappeared back into the shuttle’s flight deck; reappeared a minute later. “Um. Colonel, ah, Mansour? Please come aboard.”

Rachel nodded and walked past him. Still carefully expressionless, she seated herself immediately behind the flight deck door, in officer country. And listened.

The CPO was educating the new intake. “At ease, you lads,” he growled. “Find yerselves a seat. Front row, facing back, that’s right! Now buckle in. All six points, that’s right. Check the seat in front of you for a sick bag. Welcome to the vomit comet; this boat’s too small to have any gravity emulators and doesn’t accelerate faster’n a quadriplegic in a wheelbarrow, so if you get sick in free fall, you’re damn well going to throw up into those bags. Anyone who pukes up on the furniture and fittings can spend the next week cleaning ’em. Got that?”

Everyone nodded. Rachel felt cautiously optimistic; it looked as if everyone else on this run, apart from Chief Moronici, was a new assignment to the ship. Which meant her information was probably correct: they were working up to wartime levels, and departure wouldn’t be delayed long.

The door to the passenger cabin slid closed; there was a rumble below as automatic pallets rolled in and out of the shuttle’s cargo bay. Moronici knocked on the forward door and went through when it opened; he reappeared a minute later. “Launch in two minutes,” he announced. “Hang on tight!” The two minutes passed at a snail’s pace. Banging and thumping announced that dockside fuel and support lines were disconnecting; then there was a lurch and a jolt followed by a loud hissing that died away as the airlock seal was broken behind them. “You’re all new fish here,” Chief Moronici told the flyers. “Not surprising as we’re taking on a lot of new crew. Start of a new conscription cycle. Me,”—he pointed a meaty thumb at his chest—“I’m not a conscript. I live on the ship we’re going to. And I want to live on it long enough to collect my pension. Which means I don’t intend to let you, or anyone else, do anything that endangers me or my home. The first rule of space travel”—they lurched sideways, drunkenly, and there was a disconcertingly loud rattle from underneath— “is that mistakes are fatal.

Space isn’t friendly, it kills you. And there are no second chances.” As if to emphasize the point, the bottom suddenly dropped out of Rachel’s stomach. For a moment, she felt as if a huge, rubbery, invisible gripper was trying to pull her apart — and then she was floating. The ratings all looked as surprised as Chief Moronici looked smug.

“Main engine should come on in about five minutes,” Moronici announced. Banging and clicking shuddered through the cramped cabin, as it veered gently to the left: thrusters were busy nudging it out of the dock. “Like I was saying, mistakes here tend to kill people. And I have no intention of letting you kill me. Which is why, while you’re on board the Lord Vanek, you pukes will do exactly what I, or any other PO, or any officer, tells you to do. And you will do it with a shit-eating grin, or I will ram your head so far up your ass you’ll be able to give yourself a tonsillectomy with your teeth. Is that understood?” He continued to ignore Rachel, implicitly acknowledging that she lay outside his reach.

The ratings nodded. One of them, green-faced, gulped, and Moronici swiftly yanked a sick bag from the back of an adjacent seat and held it in front of the man’s face. Rachel saw what he was trying to do; the pep talk was as much a distraction from the disorientation of free fall as anything else.

Rachel closed her eyes and breathed deeply — then regretted it: the shuttle stank of stale sweat, with a faint undertone of ozone and the sickly-sweet odor of acetone. It had been a long time since she’d prayed for anything, but right now she was praying with all her might for this ride in a tin can to come to an end. It was the crummiest excuse for a shuttle she’d been on in decades, an old banger like something out of an historical drama. It seemed to go on and on. Until, of course, it stopped with a buffet and clang as they latched on to the Lord Vanek’s stabilized docking adapter, then a grinding creak as it pulled them in and spun them up, and a hiss as pressure equalized.

“Erm, Colonel?”

She opened her eyes. It was CPO Moronici. He looked somewhat green, as if unsure how to deal with her. “It’s alright, Chief. I’ve gone aboard foreign naval vessels before.” She stood. “Is there anyone waiting for me?”

“Yes’m.” He stared straight ahead, as if outrageously embarrassed.

“Fine.” She unbuckled, stood, feeling the uneven gravity of the battlecruiser’s spin, and adjusted her beret. “Let me at them.”

The airlock opened. “Section, present — arms!”

She stepped forward into the docking bay, feeling the incredulous stares from all sides. A senior officer, a commander if she read his insignia correctly, was waiting for her, face stiffly frozen to conceal the inevitable surprise. “Colonel Mansour, UN Disarmament Inspectorate,” she said. “Hello, Commander—”

“Murametz.” He blinked, perplexed. “Ah, your papers? Lieutenant Menvik says you’re attached to the Admiral’s staff. But they didn’t tell us to expect you—”

“That’s perfectly alright.” She pointed him down the corridor that led to the ship’s main service core.

“They don’t know about me yet. At least, not unless Archduke Michael warned them. Just take me to see the Admiral, and everything will be alright.”

Her luggage rolled quietly after her, on a myriad of brightly colored ball bearings.

The Admiral was having a bad morning: his false pregnancy was causing problems again.

“I feel ill,” he mumbled quietly. “Do I have to — to get up?”

“It would help, sir.” Robard, his batman, gently slid an arm around his shoulders to help him sit up. “We depart in four hours. Your staff meeting is penciled in for two hours after that, and you have an appointment with Commodore Bauer before then. Ah, there’s also a communique from His Royal Highness that has a most-urgent seal on it.”

“Well bring it — it — it in then,” said the Admiral. “Damned morning sickness …” Just then, the annunciator in the next room chimed softly. “I’ll just check that, sir,” said Robard. Then:

“Someone to see you, sir. Without an appointment. Ah — it’s a what? A—oh, I see. Alright then. He’ll be ready in a minute.” Pacing back into the bedroom, he cleared his throat. “Sir, are you ready? Ah, yes.

Ahem. You have a visitor, sir. A diplomat who has been seconded to your staff by order of Archduke Michael; some sort of foreign observer.”

“Oh.” Kurtz frowned. “Didn’t have any of them back at Second Lamprey. Just as well, really. Just lots of darkies. Bloody bad sports, those darkies, wouldn’t stand still and be shot. Bloody foreigners. Show the man in!”

Robard cast a critical eye over his master. Sitting up in bed with his jacket wrapped around his shoulders, he looked like a convalescent turtle — but marginally presentable. As long as he didn’t tell the ambassador all about his ailment, it could probably be passed off as an attack of gout. “Yes, sir.” The door opened and Robard’s jaw dropped. Standing there was a stranger in a strange uniform. He had an attache case clasped under one arm, and a rather bemused-looking commander standing beside him. Something about the man shrieked of strangeness, until Robard worked it out; his mouth twisted with distaste as he muttered, “Invert,” to himself.

Then the stranger spoke — in a clear, high voice. “United Nations of Earth, Standing Committee on Multilateral Disarmament. I’m Colonel Mansour, special agent and military attache to the embassy, attached to this expedition as an observer on behalf of the central powers. My credentials.” That voice!

If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he was a woman, thought Robard.

“Thank you. If you’d come this way, please, my lord is indisposed but will receive you in his sleeping quarters.” Robard bowed and backed into the Admiral’s bedroom, where he was mortified to find the old man lying back on his pillows, mouth agape, snoring quietly.

“Ahem. Sir! Your Lordship!” A bleary eye opened. “May I introduce Colonel, ah—”

“—Rachel Mansour.”

“—Rachel Mansour”—he squeaked—“from Earth, military attache from the embassy! His, er, credentials.” The colonel looked on, smiling faintly as the flustered batman proffered the case to the Admiral.

“S’funny name for a c-colonel, Colonel,” mumbled the Admiral. “Are ye sure you’re not a, a — ah—” He sneezed, violently, then sat up. “Damn these goose-down pillows,” he complained bitterly. “And damn the gout. Wasn’t like this at First Lamprey.”

“Indeed not,” Rachel observed drily. “Lots of sand there, as I recall.”

“Very good, that man! Lots of sand, indeed, lots of sand. Sun beating down on your head, ragheads all over the place shooting at you, and not really anything big enough to nuke from orbit. Whose command were you in, eh?”

“As a matter of fact, I was with the war crimes tribunal. Sifting mummified body parts for evidence.” Robard went gray, waiting for the Admiral to detonate, but the old man simply laughed raucously.

“Robard! Help me up, there’s a good fellow. I say-ay, I never expected to meet a fellow veteran here!

To my desk. I must inspect his credentials!”

Somehow they managed to migrate the fifteen feet or so to the Admiral’s study without his complaining bitterly about the cost of maternity wear or gingerly inspecting his legs to make sure they hadn’t turned to glass overnight — one of his occasional nightmares — and the effeminate colonel discreetly slid himself into one of the visitor’s chairs. Robard stared at the man. A woman’s name, a high voice, if he didn’t know better, he could almost believe that—

“Duke Michael agreed to my presence for two reasons,” said Mansour. “Firstly, you should be aware that as an agent of the UN it is my job to report back impartially on any — I emphasize, any—violations of treaties to which your government is a party. But more importantly, there is a shortage of information about the entity which has attacked your colony world. I’m also here to bear witness in case they make use of forbidden or criminal weapons. I am also authorized to act as a neutral third party for purposes of arbitration and parley, to arrange exchanges of prisoners and cease-fires, and to ensure that, insofar as any war can be conducted in a civilized manner, this one is.”

“Well that’s a damn fine thing to know, sir, and you are welcome to join my staff,” said the Admiral, sitting upright in his bath chair. “Feel free to approach me whenever you want! You’re a good man, and I’m pleased to know there’s another vet-eteran of First Lamprey in the fleet.” For a brief moment, he looked alarmed. “Oh dear. It’s kicking again.”

Mansour looked at him oddly. Robard opened his mouth, but the foreign colonel managed to speak before he could change the subject. “It?”

‘The baby,“ Kurtz confided, looking miserable. ”It’s an elephant. I don’t know what to do with it. If its father—“ He stopped. His expression of alarm was chilling.

“Ahem. I think you’d better withdraw now, sir,” said Robard, staring coldly at Rachel. “It’s time for His Lordship’s medicine. I’m afraid it would be for the best if in future you’d call ahead before visiting; he has these spells, you know.”

Rachel shook her head. “I’ll remember to do that.” She stood. “Good-bye, sir.” She turned and departed.

As he was helping the Admiral out of his chair, Robard thought he heard a soprano voice from outside:

“—Didn’t know you had elephants!” He shook his head hopelessly. Women aboard the Imperial flagship, admirals who thought they were pregnant, and a fleet about to embark on the longest voyage in naval history, against an unknown enemy. Where was it going to end?

The Citizen curator was unamused. “So. To summarize, the Navy boys gave you the runaround, but have now allowed you on board their precious battlecruiser. Along the way, you lost contact with your subject for an entire working day. Last night you say he did nothing unusual, but you report patchy coverage. And what else? How did he spend that evening?”

“I don’t understand, sir,” Vassily said tightly. “What do you mean?” The Citizen scowled furiously; even at a forty-thousand-kilometer remove, his picture on the screen was enough to make Vassily recoil. “It says in your report,” the Citizen said with heavy emphasis, “that the subject left his apartment, was lost for a few minutes, and was next seen dining at a public establishment in the company of an actress. At whose apartment he subsequently spent a good few hours before returning to base. And you didn’t investigate her?”

Vassily flushed right to the tips of his ears. “I thought—”

“Has he ever done anything like this before? While in New Prague, for example? I think not. According to his file he has led the life of a monk since arriving in the Republic. Not once, not once in nearly two months at the Glorious Crown Hotel, did he show any sign of interest in the working girls. Yet as soon as he arrives and starts work, what does he do?”

“I didn’t think of that.”

“I know you didn’t.” The Citizen Curator fell silent for a moment, but his expression was eloquent; Vassily cringed before it. “I’m not going to do any more of your thinking for you, but perhaps you’d be so good as to tell me what you propose to do next.”

“Uh.” Vassily blinked. “Run a background check on her? If it’s clear, ask her a few questions? Keep a closer eye on him in future …?”

“Very good.” The Citizen grinned savagely. “And what have you learned from this fiasco?”

“To watch the subject’s behavior, and be alert for changes in it,” Vassily said woodenly. “Especially the things he doesn’t do, as much as those he does.” It was a basic message, one drilled into recruits all the way through training, and he could kick himself for forgetting it. How could he have missed something so obvious?

“That’s right.” The Citizen leaned back, away from the camera on his phone. “A very basic skill, Muller.

Yet we all learn best from our mistakes. See that you learn from this one, eh? I don’t care if you have to follow your man all the way to Rochard’s World and back, as long as you keep your eyes open and spot it when he makes his move. And think about all the other things you’ve been told to do. I’ll tell you this for free: you’ve forgotten to do something else, and you’ll be happier if you notice it before I have to remind you!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good-bye.” The videophone link dissolved into random blocks, then went blank. Vassily eased out of his cubicle, trying to work out just what the Citizen’s parting admonition meant. The sooner he cleared everything up, proving once and for all that Springfield was or was not a spy, the better — he wasn’t cut out for shipboard life. Maybe it would be a good idea to start the new day by interviewing the engineering chief Springfield was working under? Probably that was what the Citizen meant for him to do; he could leave following up on the whore until later. (The idea filled him with an uncomfortable sense of embarrassment.)

No sooner did he poke his nose into the corridor than he was nearly run down by a team of ratings, hustling a trolley laden with heavy equipment at the double. On his second attempt, he took the precaution of looking both ways before venturing out: there were no obstacles. He made his way through the cramped, blue-painted corridor, following the curve of the inner hull. Floating free, the Lord Vanek relied on its own curved-space generator to produce a semblance of gravity. Vassily hunted for a radial walkway, then a lift down to the engineering service areas located at the heart of the ship, two-thirds of the way down its length.

There were people everywhere, some in corridors, some in chambers opening off the passageways, and others in rooms to either side. He caught a fair number of odd glances on his way, but nobody stopped him: most people would go out of their way to avoid the attentions of an officer in the Curator’s Office. It took him a while to find the engineering spaces, but eventually, he found his way to a dimly lit, wide-open chamber full of strange machines and fast-moving people. Oddly, he felt very light on his feet as he waited in the entrance to the room. No sign of Springfield, but of course, that was hardly surprising; the engineering spaces of a capital ship were large enough to conceal any number of sins. “Is this the main drive engineering deck?” he asked a passing technician.

“What do you think it is? The head?” called the man as he hurried off. Vassily shrugged irritably and stepped forward— and forward — and forward—“What are you doing there?” Someone grabbed his elbow. “Hey, watch out!” He flailed helplessly, then stopped moving as he realized what was going on.

The ceiling was close and the floor was a long way away and he was falling toward the far wall—

“Help,” he gasped.

“Hold on tight.” The hand on his elbow shifted to his upper arm and yanked, hard. A large rack of equipment, bolted to the floor, came close, and he grabbed and held on to it.

“Thanks. Is this the engineering deck? I’m looking for the chief drive engineer,” he said. It took an effort to talk over the frantic butterfly beat of his heart.

“That would be me.” Vassily stared at his rescuer. “Couldn’t have you bending the clocks now, could I?

They curve badly enough as it is. What do you want?”

“It’s—” Vassily stopped. “I’m sorry. Could we talk somewhere in private?” The engineering officer — his overalls bore the name Krupkin — frowned mightily. “We might, but I’m very busy. We’re moving in half an hour. Is it important?”

“Yah. It won’t get your work done any faster, but if you help me now it might take less of your time later.”

“Huh. Then we’ll see.” The officer turned and pointed at the other side of the open space. “See that office cubicle? I’ll meet you in there in ten minutes.” And he turned abruptly, kicked off, and disappeared into the gloom, chaos and moving bodies that circled the big blue cube at the center of the engineering bay.

“Holy Father!” Vassily took stock of his situation. Marooned, clinging to a box of melting clocks at the far side of a busy free-fall compartment from his destination, he could already feel his breakfast rising in protest at the thought of crossing the room.

Grimly determined not to embarrass himself, he inched his way down to floor level. There were toeholds recessed into the floor tiles, and now he looked at them he saw that they were anchored, but obviously designed to be removed frequently. If he pretended that the floor was a wall, then the office door was actually about ten meters above him, and there were plenty of handholds along the way.

He took a deep breath, pulled himself around the clock cabinet, and kicked hard against it where it joined the floor. The results were gratifying; he shot up, toward the office. The wall dropped toward him, and he was able to grab hold of a passing repair drone and angle his course toward the doorway. As he entered it, gravity began to return — he slid along the deck, coming to an undignified halt lying on his back just inside. The office was small, but held a desk, console, and a couple of chairs; a rating was doing something with the console. “You,” he said, “out, please.”

“Aye aye, sir.” The fresh-faced rating hurriedly closed some kind of box that was plugged into the console, then saluted and withdrew into the free-fall zone. Shaken, Vassily sat down in the seat opposite the desk and waited for Engineering Commander Krupkin to arrive. It was already 1100, and what had he achieved today? Nothing, so far as he could tell, except to learn that the Navy’s motto seemed to be

“Hurry up and wait.” The Citizen wouldn’t be pleased.

Meanwhile, on the bridge, the battlecruiser Lord Vanek was counting down for main drive activation.

As the flagship of the expedition, Lord Vanek was at the heart of squadron one, along with three of the earlier Glorious-class battlecruisers, and the two Victory-class battleships Kamchatka and Regina (now sadly antiquated, relics that had seen better days). Squadron Two, consisting of a mixed force of light cruisers, destroyers, and missile carriers, would launch six hours behind Squadron One; finally, the supply train, with seven bulk cargo freighters and the liner Sikorsky’s Dream (refitted as a hospital ship) would depart eight hours later.

Lord Vanek was, in interstellar terms, a simple beast: ninety thousand tonnes of warship and a thousand crew held in tight orbit around an electron-sized black hole as massive as a mountain range. The hole — the drive kernel — spun on its axis so rapidly that its event horizon was permeable; the drive used it to tug the ship about by tickling the singularity in a variety of ways. At nonrelativistic speeds, Lord Vanek maneuvered by dumping mass into the kernel; complex quantum tunneling interactions — jiggery-pokery within the ergosphere — transformed it into raw momentum. At higher speeds, energy pumped into the kernel could be used to generate the a jump field, collapsing the quantum well between the ship and a point some distance away.

The kernel had a few other uses: it was a cheap source of electricity and radioisotopes, and by tweaking the stardrive, it was possible to use it to produce a local curved-space gravity field. As a last resort, it could even be jettisoned and used as a weapon in its own right. But if there was one word that wouldn’t describe it, that word must be “maneuevrable.” Eight-billion-ton point masses do not make right-angle turns.

Commander Krupkin saluted as a rating held the bridge door open for him. “Engineering Commander reporting on the state of machinery, sir!”

“Very good.” Captain Mirsky nodded from his command chair at the rear of the room. “Come in. What do you have for me?”

Krupkin relaxed slightly. “All systems operational and correct, sir,” he announced formally. “We’re ready to move at any time. Our status is clear on—” He rapidly rattled through the series of watches under his control. Finally: “The drive control modifications you ordered, sir — we’ve never run anything like this before. They look alright, and the self-test says everything is fine, but I can’t say any more than that without unsealing the black boxes.”

Mirsky nodded. “They’ll work alright.” Krupkin wished he could feel as confident as the Captain sounded; the black boxes, shipped aboard only a week ago and wired into the main jump drive control loop, did not fill him with confidence. Indeed, if it hadn’t been obvious that the orders to integrate them came from the highest level and applied to every ship in the fleet, he’d have thrown the nearest thing to a tantrum that military protocol permitted. It was his job to keep the drive running, and dammit, he should know everything there was to know about how it worked! There could be anything in those boxes, from advanced (whisper it, illegal) high technology to leprechauns — and he’d be held responsible if it didn’t work.

A bearded man at the other side of the bridge stood. “Humbly request permission to report, sir.”

“You have permission,” said Mirsky.

“I have completed downloading navigation elements from system traffic control. I am just now having them punched into the autopilot. We will be ready to spin up for departure in ten minutes.”

“Very good, Lieutenant. Ah, Comms, my compliments to the Admiral and the Commodore, and we are preparing for departure in ten minutes. Lieutenant Helsingus, proceed in accordance with the traffic control departure plan. You have the helm.”

“Aye, sir, I have the helm. Departure in ten minutes.” Helsingus bent over his speaking tube; ratings around him began turning brass handles and moving levers with calm deliberation, sending impulses along the nerves of steel that bound the ship into an almost living organism. (Although nano-electronics might be indispensable in the engine room, the New Republican Admiralty held the opinion that there was no place for suchlike newfangled rubbish on the bridge of a ship crewed by the heroic fighting men of the empire.)

“Well, Commander.” Mirsky nodded at the engineer. “How does it feel to be moving at last?” Krupkin shrugged. “I’ll be happier when we’re in flat space. There are rumors” For a moment, the Captain’s smile slipped. “Indeed. Which is why we will be going to action stations at departure and staying that way until after our first jump. You can never tell, and the Commodore wants to be sure that no spies or enemy missile buses are lying in wait for us.”

“A wise precaution, sir. Permission to return to my station?”

“Granted. Go with God, Commander.”

Krupkin saluted, and headed back for his engineering control room as fast as his short legs would carry him. It was, he reflected, going to be a busy time, even with as quietly competent a dockyard consultant engineer as Martin to help him keep the magic smoke in the drive control boxes.

The colony of Critics writhed and tunneled in their diamond nest, incubating a devastating review. A young, energetic species, descended from one of the postSingularity flowerings that had exploded in the wake of the Diaspora three thousand years in their past, they held precious little of the human genome in their squamous, cold-blooded bodies. Despite their terrestrial descent, only their brains bound them tightly to the sapiens clade — for not all the exiles from Earth were human.

As hangers-on, the Critics had no direct access to the Festival’s constellation of relay satellites or the huge network of visual and auditory sensors that had been scattered across the surface of the planet.

(Most of the Festival’s senses were borne on the wings of tiny insectoidal robots, with which they had saturated the biosphere, sending a million for every single telephone that had rained down from orbit.) Instead, the Critics had to make do with their own devices; a clumsy network of spy-eyes in low orbit, winged surveillance drones, and precarious bugs planted on the window ledges and chimney pots of significant structures.

The Critics watched, with their peculiar mixture of bemusement and morbid cynicism, while the soldiers of the First and Fourth Regiments shot their officers and deserted en masse to the black flag of Burya Rubenstein’s now-overt Traditional Extropian Revolutionary Front. (Many soldiers burned their uniforms and threw away their guns; others adopted new emblems and took up strange silvery arms churned out by the committee’s replicator farm.) The Critics looked on as peasants greedily demanded pigs, goats, and in one case, a goose that laid golden eggs from the Festival; their womenfolk quietly pleaded for medicinal cures, metal cutlery, and fabric. In the castle, shots were heard as the servants butchered the Duke’s menagerie for food. A rain of gold roubles ordered by some economic saboteur fell widely across the streets of Novy Petrograd, and was equally widely ignored: to that extent, the economic collapse brought about by the Festival’s advent was already complete.

“They are truly pathetic,” commented She Who Observes the First; she clashed her tusks over a somatic bench that depicted a scene below, some of the few remaining loyal grenadiers dragging a terrified cobbler toward the gates of the castle, followed by his screaming, pleading family. “Unregulated instincts, unable to assimilate reality, bereft of perspective.”

“Chew roots; dig deep.” Guard Man the Fifth champed lugubriously, demonstrating his usual level of insight (intelligence not being a particularly useful characteristic in tunnel-running warriors). “Tastes of blood and soil.”

“Everything tastes of soil to a warrior,” She Who Observes snorted. “Eat tubers, brother, while your sisters discuss matters beyond your ken.” She rolled sideways, butting up against Sister of Stratagems the Seventh, who nipped at her flank gently. “Sibling-litter-peer. Uncertainty flows?”

“A time of exponentiating changes is upon them.” Sister Seventh was much given to making such gnomic pronouncements, perhaps in the naive hope that it would gain her a reputation for vision (and, ultimately, support when she made her bid for queendom). “Perhaps they are disorganized surface-scrabblers, clutching at stems, but there is a certain grandeur to their struggle; a level of sincerity seldom approached by primitives.”

“Primitive they are: their internal discourse is crippled by a complete absence of intertextuality. I cringe in astonishment that Festival wastes its attention on them.”

“Hardly. They are Festival’s antithesis, do you not feel this in your whiskers?” Sister Seventh blinked redly at She Who Observes, pawing for the control tree of the somatic bench. “Here we see a nest-drone.” The scene slewed into an enclosed space, following the abducted cobbler into the walls of the castle, “Phenotypic dispersal leads to extended specialization, as ever, with the usual degree of free will found in human civilization. But this one is structured to prevent information surge, do you not see?”

“Information surge? Prevented? Life is information!” Sister Seventh farted smugly. “I have been monitoring the Festival. Not one of the indigines has asked it for information! Artifacts, yes. Food, yes. Machines, up to and including replicators, yes. But philosophy? Art? Mathematics? Ontology? We might be witnessing our first zombie civilization.” Zombies were a topic that fascinated Sister Seventh. An ancient hypothesis of the original preSingularity ur-civilization, a zombie was a non-self-conscious entity that acted just like a conscious one: it laughed, cried, talked, ate, and generally behaved just like a real person, and if questioned, would claim to be conscious — but behind its superficial behavior, there was nobody home, no internalized model of the universe it lived in.

The philosophers had hypothesized that no such zombies existed, and that everything that claimed personhood was actually a person. Sister Seventh was less convinced. Human beings— those rugose, endothermic anthropoids with their ridiculously small incisors and anarchic social arrangements — didn’t seem very real to her. So she was perpetually searching for evidence that, actually, they weren’t people at all.

She Who Observes was of the opinion that her littermate was chewing on the happy roots again, but then, unlike Sister Seventh, she wasn’t a practical critic: she was an observer.

“I think we really need to settle the zombie question here before we fix their other problems.”

“And how do you propose to do that?” asked She Who Observes. “It’s the subjectivity problem again.

I tell you, the only viable analytical mode is the intentional stance. If something claims to be conscious, take it at its own word and treat it as if it has conscious intentions.”

“Ah, but I can so easily program a meerkat to chirp ‘I think, therefore I am!’ No, sister, we need to tunnel nearer the surface to find the roots of sapience. A test is required, one that a zombie will stick in, but an actor will squeeze through.”

“Do you have such a test in mind?”.

Sister Seventh pawed air and champed her huge, yellow tusks. “Yes, I think I can construct one. The essential characteristic of conscious beings is that they adopt the intentional stance: that is, they model the intentions of other creatures, so that they can anticipate their behavior. When they apply such a model to others, they acquire the ability to respond to their intentions before they become obvious: when they apply it to themselves, they become self-conscious, because they acquire an understanding of their own motivations and the ability to modify them.

“But thus far, I have seen no evidence that their motivations are self-modifying, or indeed anything but hardwired reflexes. I want to test them, by introducing them to a situation where their own self-image is contradicted by their behavior. If they can adapt their self-image to the new circumstances, we will know that we are dealing with fellow sapients. Which will ultimately influence the nature of our review.”

“This sounds damaging or difficult, sister. I will have to think on it before submitting to Mother.” Seventh emitted a bubbling laugh and flopped forward onto her belly. “Oh, sibling! What did you think I have in mind?”

“I don’t know. But be it anything like your usual—” She Who Observes stopped, seeing the triumphant gleam in her sister’s eye.

“I merely propose to Criticize a handful of them a trifle more thoroughly than usual,” said Sister Seventh.

“And when I’m done, any who live will know they’ve been Criticized. This is my methodology …” Commander Krupin took nearly two hours to get around to seeing Vassily Muller: it wasn’t intentional on his part. Almost as soon as the main drive field was powered up and running, and the ship surfing smoothly away from the Klamovka beanstalk, his pager beeped: ALL OFFICERS TO BRIEFING ROOM D IMMEDIATELY

“Shit and corruption,” he muttered. Passing Pavel Grubor: “The old man wants me right now. Can you take care of the shipyard technician and find out how long he’s going to be in closing out the installation of the baseline compensator? Page me when you’ve got an answer.” He headed off without waiting for a response.

Mikhail Krupkin enjoyed his job, and didn’t particularly expect or want any further promotions; he’d been in shipboard systems for the past fourteen years and expected to serve out his career in them before enjoying a long and happy retirement working for some commercial space line. However, messages like this one completely destroyed his peace of mind. It meant that the boss was going to ask him questions about the availability of his systems, and with the strange patch boxes installed in the drive room, the Lord Vanek might be mobile, but he couldn’t in all honesty swear it was one hundred percent solid.

He didn’t know just what was in those boxes, but he was sure there was a reason why the Admiralty was spending several million crowns on a drive upgrade. And in any event, they’d been remarkably cagey about the extra control software for them. Boxes, hooked into the drive, which also hooked into the new, high-bandwidth linkup to the tactical network: something smelled.

All this and more was on his mind as he took the express elevator up to the conference suite in officer country. The door to Room D was open, waiting for him. Most of the other senior officers were already there. Ilya Murametz, the ship’s executive officer, Lieutenant Helsingus from fire control, the usual battle operations team, Vulpis from Relativity … he was probably last, but for the Captain, by reason of having come farthest. “Ilya. What’s going on?”

Ilya glanced at him. “The Captain is with the Admiral. When he arrives he will make an announcement,” he said. “I don’t know anything about it except that it’s nothing specific.” Krupkin breathed a silent sight of relief; “nothing specific” meant that it wasn’t about the running of the ship. Nobody was going to be hauled over the coals today. Not that Captain Mirsky was a martinet by the standards of the New Republican Navy, but he could be merciless if he thought someone was asleep at the switch or not doing his job properly.

Suddenly there was a change of atmosphere in the room. Everyone turned to face the doorway: conversations stopped, and officers came to attention. Captain Mirsky stood for a long moment, surveying his staff. Evidently what he saw gratified him; when he spoke his first words were, “Gentlemen, please be seated.” He walked to the head of the table and laid down a thick folder in front of his chair.

“It is now 1130. The door to this room is shut, and will remain shut, barring emergencies, until 1200. I am authorized to inform you that we are now under battle orders. I am not privy to the political discussions behind our orders, but I am informed by Admiral Kurtz’s staff that it appears likely that no resolution of the crisis short of war is possible; accordingly, we have been ordered to proceed as part of Task Group One to Rochard’s World, by way of Battle Plan Omega Green Horizon.” Now he pulled his chair out and sat down. “Are there any questions about the background before I go into our specific orders?” he asked.

Lieutenant Marek raised a hand. “Sir, do we know anything about the aggressor? It seems to me that the censor’s office has been more than usually diligent.”

Captain Mirsky’s cheek twitched. “A good question.” Krupkin glanced at the lieutenant; a young hotshot in TacOps, who’d joined the ship less than six months ago. “A good question deserves a good answer.

Unfortunately, I can’t give you one because nobody has seen fit to tell me. So, Lieutenant. How do you think our armed forces stack up, in a worst-possible-case situation?” Lieutenant Marek gulped; he hadn’t been on board long enough to have figured out the Captain’s Socratic style of testing his subordinates’ knowledge — a holdover from Mirsky’s two tours as a professor in the Naval Staff Academy. “Against whom, sir? If it was just a matter of suppressing a local rebellion, there wouldn’t be any problem at all. But Rochard’s World had a picket force consisting of a destroyer plus point defenses, and they’d be as good as us at suppression. So they wouldn’t be sending us if that was enough to deal with the situation. There must be an active enemy who has already stopped the local picket force intervening.”

“An accurate summary.” Captain Mirsky smiled humorlessly. “One that holds true whatever we face.

Unfortunately, you now know as much as I do, but for one thing: apparently the destroyer Sakhalin was eaten. I don’t know if this is metaphor or literal truth, but it appears that nobody knows who this Festival is, or what they are capable of, or whether the destroyer gave them indigestion. Let us not forget our oath of allegiance to the Emperor and the Republic; whatever they choose to do, we are sworn to be their right arm. If they decide to strike at an enemy, well, let us strike hard. Meanwhile, let us assume the worst. What if the enemy has cornucopia machines?”

Marek looked puzzled. “Couldn’t it go either way, sir? On the one hand, they have tools that let them build lots of weapons quickly without getting their hands dirty. But on the other hand, if they’re not used to working, isn’t there a good chance that they’re moral degenerates? The ability to manufacture doesn’t confer victory automatically, if the people who have it are weakened and corrupted by their decadent robot-supported lifestyle. How can they possibly have the traditions and Esprit of an honorable military force?”

“That remains to be seen,” the Captain said cryptically. “For the time being, I prefer to assume the worst.

And the worst case is that the enemy has cornucopia machines, and is not decadent and cowardly.” Marek shook his head slightly.

“You have a question?” asked Mirsky.

“Uh. I thought—” Marek looked worried. “Is that possible?”

“Anything is possible,” the Captain said, heavily. “And if we plan for the worst, with luck all our surprises will be favorable.” He glanced away from the naive Lieutenant. “Next.” Krupkin, who as an engineer had his own opinion about the advisability of banning the use of technologies for social reasons, nodded to himself. While Mirsky wouldn’t say so in public, he had a very good idea what the Captain was thinking— having a decadent robot-supported lifestyle doesn’t preclude having military traditions. In fact, it may give them more time to focus on the essentials.

The Captain continued to poll his officers, publicly querying the readiness of their posts.

“—Engineering status. Commander Krupkin?”

Krupkin stifled a grunt of annoyance. “The shipyard contractor is still applying the upgrade patches to our baseline compensators. I am awaiting a precise hand-off estimate, but as of this morning, we expected three more shifts to complete the modifications, and another shift to test them. I have no complaints about his efficiency: he’s as good as anyone I’ve ever worked with, a real virtuoso. Other than that, the secondary compensator set — which is not being upgraded — is fully operational. We are moving at full speed, but will not have full redundancy and the new upgrade modifications ready for another four to five days — at a minimum.”

“I see.” The Captain made a note on his blotter. He looked back at the engineer: a piercing blue-eyed stare that would have turned a less experienced officer into a nervous wreck. “Can the modifications be expedited? We will be passing into foreign space-time in two days; thereafter, we must anticipate the presence of enemy minelayers and warships along our route.”

“Um — probably, sir. Unfortunately, the upgrades aren’t straightforward enough for our routine engineering staff. Springfield is a specialist, and he is exerting himself fully. I believe that we might be able to speed things up, but at the risk of errors creeping in because of fatigue. If I can use an analogy, it’s like a master surgeon performing an operation. Extra pairs of hands simply get in the way, and you can’t prop a surgeon up for days on end and expect his work to remain acceptable. I think we might be able to shave a day or two off the four-to-five-day estimate, but no more.”

“I see.” Captain Mirsky glanced at Murametz significantly. “But we are still able to move and fight, and the new black-box system is already integrated.” He nodded. “Helsingus, how is TacOps?”

“I’ve been running daily exercises predicated on a standard fleet aggressor profile for the past week, sir, using the standard models Admiralty shipped us. We could do with a bit longer, but I think the boys have generally got the right idea. Barring any major surprises in enemy tactical doctrine, we’re ready to deal with them, whoever they are, one-on-one.”

“Good.” Mirsky sat in thought for a minute. “I have to tell you that I have a meeting this afternoon with Commodore Bauer and a teleconference with the other captains. You should assume that, as of now, this ship is on a war footing. You should be prepared for combat operations in the near future. Meanwhile, I expect daily reports on drive and gunnery readiness.

“That goes for the rest of you, too. I want daily readiness reports. We’ve wasted a lot of time churning conscripts this month, and I want us up to ninety-five percent operational capability as soon as possible.

We will be bunkering a full fuel load and munitions from the supply ship Aurora tomorrow, and I expect that, as soon as we spool up for our first jump, we will be going to battle stations. That gives you about thirty-six hours to get ready for action. Are there any questions, gentlemen?” Helsingus raised a hand.

“Yes?”

“Sir. Minelayers? Where are we going that might be mined?”

Mirsky nodded. “A good point, Commander. Our initial jump is going to be a short-hauler to Wolf Depository Five. I know that’s not on a direct course for Rochard’s World, but if we go straight there — well, I presume our enemies can plot a straight course, too. What we don’t know is how much they know about us. I hope to know more about them this afternoon.” He stood up. “If they launch a surprise attack, we’ll be ready for them. God is on our side; all the indications are that this Festival is a pagan degeneracy, and all we need to do is be of good heart and man our guns with enthusiasm. Any other questions?” He looked around the room. Nobody raised a hand. “Very good. I am now leaving and will be in closed conference with the Commodore. Dismissed.” The Captain left the room in silence. But as soon as the door closed behind him, there was an uproar.

Martin was in a foul mood. Krupkin had broken the news to him hours earlier: “I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is,” he’d said. “Double shifts. We’re on a war footing. You especially don’t get to sleep until the upgrade job is done; orders from the skipper, who is not in a reasonable mood. Once it’s done, you can crash out for as long as you want, but we need it before we see combat.”

“It’s going to be sixteen hours, minimum, whatever happens,” Martin told him, trying hard to keep his cool. “The patches will be installed and active by the end of this shift, but I can’t release the system to you until it’s tested out fully. The regression tests are entirely automatic and take twenty thousand seconds to run. Then there’s the maneuver testing, which would normally take all week if this was a new hull we were upgrading. Finally, there’s drive qualification time which is three months for a new and untested system like the one your Admiralty ordered, and what do you think the chances are that you’re going to sit still for that?”

“Skip it,” Krupkin said briskly. “We’re going to be maneuvering on it tomorrow. Can you start the white-box phase today?”

“Fuck it.” Martin pulled his goggles and gloves back on. “Talk to me later, okay? I’m busy. You’ll get your bloody drive mods. Just point me at a bunk this evening.” He dived back into the immersive interface, ignoring the commander — who took it surprisingly mildly.

Which was perhaps just as well. Martin was keeping a tight rein on his anger, but beneath the brittle exterior, he was disturbed. The business with Rachel had unsettled him; he was now intensely nervous, and not just because of the volatility of the situation. Her approach had caught him off guard and vulnerable, and the potential consequences ranged from the unpredictable to the catastrophic.

For the rest of the day, he worked furiously, checking the self-extending array of connectors linking the new drive control circuitry into the existing neural networks. He headed off several possible problems in the performance profile of the control feedback sensors, tuned the baseline compensators for extra precision, and added several patches to the inner hard control loops that monitored and pulled the hair on the black hole; but he left the midlife kicker traps alone. And he installed the special circuit that Herman had asked him to add.

He worked on into the evening shift, then started the regression tests going: a series of self-test routines, driven by software, that would exercise and report on every aspect of the drive upgrade. Installing and testing the module was the easy task: tomorrow he’d have to start testing how it interacted with the kernel — an altogether more nerve-wracking experience. So it was that, at 2500, he yawned, stretched, set aside his gloves and feedback sensors, and stood up.

“Aargh.” He stretched further. Joints popped with the effort; he felt dizzy, and tired, and slightly sick. He blinked; everything seemed flat and monochromatic after the hours immersed in false-color 3-D controls, and his wrists ached. And why, in this day and age, did warships smell of pickled cabbage, stale sweat, and an occasional undertone of sewage? He stumbled to the door. A passing rating glanced at him curiously. “I need to find a bunk,” he explained.

“Please wait here, sir.” He waited. A minute or so later, one of Krupkin’s minions came into view, hand-over-hand down the wall like a human fly.

“Your berth? Ah, yes, sir. D deck, Compartment 24, there’s an officer’s room waiting for you. Breakfast call at 0700. Paulus, please show the gentleman here to his room.”

“This way, sir.” The crewman quietly and efficiently guided Martin through the ship, to a pale green corridor lined with hatches like those of a capsule hotel. “There you are.” Martin blinked at the indicated door, then pulled it aside and climbed in.

It was like a room in a capsule hotel or a compartment on a transcontinental train — one with two bunks.

The lower one flipped upside down to make a desk when not in use. It was totally sterile, totally clean, with ironed sheets and a thin blanket on the lower bunk, and it smelled of machine oil, starch, and sleepless nights. Someone had laid out a clean overall with no insignia on it. Martin eyed it mistrustfully and decided to stick to his civilian clothes until they were too dirty to tolerate. Surrendering to the New Republic’s uniform seemed symbolic; letting them claim him as one of their own would feel like a small treason.

He palmed the light to low, and stripped his shoes and socks off, then lay down on the lower bunk.

Presently, the light dimmed and he began to relax. He still felt light-headed, tired and angry, but at least the worst hadn’t happened: no tap on the shoulder, no escort to the brig. Nobody knew who he really worked for. You could never tell in this business, and Martin had a prickly feeling washing up and down his spine. This whole situation was completely bizarre, and Herman’s request that he plonk himself in the middle of it was well out of the usual run of assignments. He shut his eyes and tried to push away the visions of spinning yellow blocks that danced inside his head.

The door opened and closed. “Martin,” said a quiet voice beside his pillow, “keep your voice down.

How did things go?”

He jackknifed upright and nearly smashed his head on the underside of the bunk overhead. “What!” He paused. “What are you—”

“Doing here?” A quiet, ironic laugh. “I’m doing the same as you; feeling tired, wondering what the hell I’m doing in this nuthouse.”

He relaxed a little, relieved. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“It’s my job to be here; I’m attached to the Admiral’s staff as a diplomatic representative. Look, I can’t stay long. It would be a really bad idea for anyone to find me in your room. At best, they’d assume the worst, and at worst, they might think you were a spy or something—”

“But I am a spy,” he blurted out in a moment of weakness. “At least, you wanted—”

“Yeah, right, and I’ve got your secret-agent decoder ring right here. Look, I want to talk, but business first. Are the drive upgrades finished?”

His eyes adjusted to the dark; he could see the outline of her face. Short hair and shadows made her look very different, harder and more determined. But something in her expression as she watched him made her look slightly uncertain. Business first, she said. “The upgrades are going to take some time,” he said. “They’re about ready for testing to start tomorrow, but it’s a risky proposition. I’m going to be ironing bugs out of the high-precision clocks for the next week.” He paused. “Are you sure this is safe?

How did you find me?”

“It wasn’t hard. Thank MiG for the security system schematics. Life Support and Security think you’re alone in here. I thought it was safer to visit in person than to try to page you.” Martin shuffled around and sat up, making room for her, and Rachel sat down next to him. He noticed for the first time that she was wearing a uniform — not a New Republican one. “You’re here for the whole voyage?”

She chuckled. “The better to get to know you. Relax. If you want to talk to your local diplomatic representative, that’s me. Besides, they need me, or someone like me. Who else is going to negotiate a cease-fire for them?”

“Aah.” Martin fell silent for a moment, thinking. He was aware of her next to him, almost painfully so.

“You’re taking a risk,” he said after a while. “They aren’t going to thank you—”

“Hush.” She leaned closer. He felt her breath on his cheek: “The drive patches you’re installing are part of an illegal weapons system, Martin. I’m sure of it. I’m not sure what kind of illegality is being contemplated, but I’m sure it involves causality violation. If they commence training maneuvers shortly, I’ll get a chance to see just what they’re planning to use the upgrades for. That’s why I need to be here.

And why I need your help. I wouldn’t normally dump this on you, but I really need your help, active help, in figuring out what’s going on. Do you understand?”

“I understand very little,” Martin said nervously, priming his autonomic override to keep his pulse steady so as not to betray the lie. He felt unaccountably guilty about withholding the truth from her. Rachel seemed like the least likely person to jeopardize his mission — and he liked her, wanted to be able to relax in her presence freely, without worries. But caution and experience conspired to seal his lips. “I’m just along for the ride,” he added. He simply couldn’t tell her about Herman. Without knowing how she’d react, the consequences might be disastrous. Might. And it was a risk he dared not take.

“Understand this,” she said quietly. “A lot of lives are at stake. Not just mine, or yours, or this ship’s, but just about everyone within a thirty-light-year radius of here. That’s a lot of people.”

“Why do you think this is going to drag the big E into the situation?” he prompted. He was deathly tired and didn’t want to have to lie to her. Can I keep her talking? he wondered. If she didn’t keep speaking, he was afraid he might tell her too much. Which would be a big mistake.

She touched his arm. “The Eschaton will be interested for a simple reason; it is absolutely opposed to causality violation. Please don’t pretend you’re that naive, Martin. I’ve seen your resume. I know where you’ve been and what you’ve done. You’re not an idiot, and you know what a well-tuned warp drive can do in the hands of an expert. In terms of special relativity, being able to travel faster than light is effectively equivalent to time travel — at least from the perspective of observers in different frames of reference. They see the light from your arrival, which is close to them, a long time before they see the light from your departure, which is a long way away. Because you’re outrunning the speed of light, events appear to happen out of sequence. Okay? Same with a causal link, an instantaneous quantum-entanglement communicator. It doesn’t mean there’s real time travel involved, or that you can create temporal paradoxes, but being able to mess with an observer’s view of events at a distance is a boon for strategists.

“The Eschaton doesn’t care about such trivial kinds of time travel, but it stamps hard on the real thing; any manifestation of closed timelike paths that could jeopardize its own history. The big E doesn’t want anyone doing a knight’s move on it, back in time and then forward again, to screw over its origin.

Someone tries to build an instantaneous communicator? No problem. They go on to build a logic gate that transmits its output into its own past, where it’s wired into the input? That’s the basis of acausal logic, and it gives you the first tool you need to build a transcendent artificial intelligence. Poof, the planet is bombarded from orbit with cannibal lemmings or bitten to death by killer asteroids or something.

“Anyway, I don’t really care all that much what the New Republic does to the Festival. I mean, maybe I care about individual people in the New Republic, and maybe the Festival folks are really nice, but that’s not the point. But I do care if they do whatever they’re going to do inside Earth’s light cone. If it involves large-scale causality violation, the E might decide to take out the entire contaminated zone. And we know it seeded colonies as much as three thousand light-years away— even assuming it still wants humans around, it can afford to wipe out a couple of hundred planets.” Martin had to bite his cheek to keep from correcting her. She fell silent. He waited for her to continue, but she didn’t; she seemed almost depressed,

“You have a lot of clout. Have you told them what you’ve deduced? Or told anybody else?” She chuckled, a peculiarly grim laugh. “If I did that, how long do you think it would be before they chucked me overboard, with or without a vacsuit? They’re paranoid enough already; they think there’s a spy on board, and they’re afraid of minelayers and saboteurs along the way.”

“A spy?” He sat up, scared. “They know there’s a—”

“Be quiet. Yes, a spy. Not one of us; some goon from the Curator’s Office who they sent along to keep an eye on you. Be quiet, I said. He’s just a kid, some wet-behind-the-ears trainee cop. Try to relax around him. As far as you’re concerned, you’re allowed to talk to me; I’m the nearest representative of your government.”

“When are we going to get off this ship?” he asked tensely.

“Probably when we arrive.” She took his hand and squeezed it. “Do your job and keep your head down,” she said calmly. “Just don’t, whatever you do, act guilty or confess to anything. Trust me, Martin, like I told you before: we’re on the same team for the duration.” Martin leaned close to her. She was tense, very tense. “This is quite insane,” he said very slowly and carefully as he slid an arm around her shoulders. “This idiotic expedition is probably going to get us both killed.”

“Maybe.” Her grip tightened on his hand.

“Better not,” he said tightly. “I haven’t had a chance to get to know you yet.”

“Me neither.” Her grip relaxed a little. “Is that what you’d like to do? Really?”

“Well.” He leaned back against the hard wall beside the bunk. “I hadn’t thought about it a lot,” he mused,

“but I’ve been alone for a long time. Really. Before this job. I need—” He shut his eyes. “Shit. What I mean to say is, I need to get out of this job for a while. I want a year or two off, to pull myself together and find out who I am again. A change and a rest. And if you’re thinking about that, too, then—”

“You sound overworked.” She shivered. “Someone just walked over my grave. You and me both, Martin, you and me both. Something about the New Republic uses you up, doesn’t it? Listen, I’ve got about two years’ accumulated leave waiting for me, after I get home. If you want to go somewhere together, to get away from all this—”

“Sounds good to me,” he said quietly. “But right now …” He trailed off, with a glance at the cabin door.

There was a moment’s frozen silence: “I won’t let you down,” she said softly. She hugged him briefly, then let go and stood up. “You’re right. I really shouldn’t be here, I’ve got a room to go to, and if they’re still watching me — well.”

She took her cap from the upper bunk, carefully placed it on her head, and opened the door. She looked back at him and, for a moment, he thought about asking her to stay, even thought about telling her everything; but then she was gone, out into the red-lit passages of the sleeping ship.

“Damn,” he said softly, watching the door in mild disbelief. “Too late, too late. Damn …”