Wildcatter

Days 415-422

Seth had no recollection at all of the next two days, and only spotty memories of the two after that. He gradually became aware that he was aboard Niagara, lying in the prospector’s bunk. Once in a while, someone would come to fuss over him, instead of just leaving him to die in peace as he wanted. When, at last, he could force his eyes to focus, he determined that his tormentor was Reese Platte, still female, and wearing an aseptic suit. She was doing something with heavy web straps.

“Oh, you’re back?” she said cheerily. “How do you feel?”

“Groan.”

“Well, that’s better than nothing, and much better than all the things you’ve been saying lately.”

“Uh?”

“Doesn’t matter. Just delirium. Can’t be held against you. We had to strap you down. You’re not going to erupt again, are you? Convulsions in free fall are not as dangerous as they are in gravity, but you might still damage yourself. I am going to give you a sponge bath. Yes, I certainly am, because at the moment you would qualify as toxic waste under the Oslo Convention.”

He came to his senses fairly rapidly in the hours after that, although physically he was as weak as a newborn. His next visitor was Hanna, wearing ordinary ship gear. She had come to remove his IV feed and give him a bulb of pseudo-chicken soup.

He felt strong enough to ask. “I take it that I am no longer in quarantine?”

“No.” That answer was suspiciously lacking in detail.

“I can rejoin the party, then?”

“Not yet. We’re still depressurizing Meredith, and you have to stay in the shuttle with her unless you want to risk an attack of the bends yourself.”

“How is she?”

“She’s recovering. She had a dozen rampant infections and parasites—all of which we dealt with—but mostly she was suffering from major nitrogen narcosis. No signs of anything unknown, and Control says she’ll live.”

“And me?”

“Unknown pathogen, but you’re recovering too.”

“Where are we going? Home or Armada?

“Home. We decided that as soon as Niagara left Cacafuego. Our life systems will be too close to critical when they must support seven people. Also we’re out of shuttle fuel.”

Seth decided he would go and see Meredith as soon as Hanna left. Instead, he fell asleep.

He learned later that he had not been as helpless as he thought. As soon as the shuttle had reached orbit, he had reacted as if he were conscious. He had floated Meredith along the Gut and strapped her down in the biologist’s bunk, then attached three pressure-driven intravenous feeds, which had been left there in readiness for her. He had even stowed his sample bag in the lab freezer before putting himself to bed, but he had no memory of doing any of those things. Control had docked the shuttle, and Reese had boarded to tend the invalids.

His next visitor was the captain herself, bringing more food and looking haggard. Seth accepted the bag but left it floating within easy reach.

“Tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“Your troubles. You can’t fool me. Speak up.” Why, for instance, had they decided to change over so soon? Usually they stayed one gender for at least a month.

Jordan smiled ruefully and folded into a sitting posture. “I was planning a special welcome-home ceremony, but I discovered I’d have to restrain myself for a few days. Eat up. You can help best by getting your strength back. We think we can risk returning you to standard atmospheric pressure in three or four days.”

“So you’re shorthanded. Where’s Reese?”

“In bed. And JC also. ‘Unknown pathogen.’ Meredith was right when she said this thing could escape any containment.”

“But what is it?” A century of galactic exploration had turned up a fantastic variety of viruses and bacteria. It seemed incredible that there could be anything really new to human medical science now. Reese and Control between them should be able to type any sort of infective agent and zap it with the appropriate drugs.

“They don’t know. Meredith survived it and it looks as if you will. The rest of us can only hope we’ll do as well when we catch it. Drink your soup while it’s hot.”

“Next time bring a steak.”

“Soft biscuits and warm milk.”

Seth said something no gentleman should say to a lady.

When Jordan had hurried off to attend to a million duties, Seth drank soup and brooded over the news. In theory the trip back to Earth should take only a few days, retracing the jumps they had made on the way here. In practice, space was never still, and Golden Hind had journeyed not merely 1,500 light years’ distance, but at least 1,500 years. If one of their havens had disappeared, Hanna would have to start all over, ferreting out a new route.

When Golden Hind arrived in near-Earth space, Control would automatically report this unknown infection and ISLA would slap a quarantine order on the ship. There were very few precedents for that, and no way of knowing how long the ban would last. Of course the news of a sentient species would ring around the world, but the new celebrities would not be available to be feted.

Seth was a made man. He would have his plog edited into shape by then and royalties would come pouring in for years. Meredith might work up hers from Galactic’s records, but it would not be as complete or as dramatic as Seth’s. She would have a cast-iron legal case against Galactic for attempted murder, so in the end she would be rich also.

But the others? They would be famous and broke. Golden Hind would be seized by the banks and the crew would be very lucky to see even the termination bonuses they had been promised in their contracts. They would not benefit from the samples Seth had so diligently collected. Even if everyone recovered completely from the mysterious infection, the voyage home was not going to be a happy one.

After eating, he decided to pay a call on his fellow sufferer. Wrapping himself in a bed sheet—since no one had yet thought to bring him any clothes—he floated along the Gut to the biologist’s cabin to visit with Meredith. Even in free fall, he felt weak, tending to bounce off walls. He found her alert, reading text on the monitor, and wearing very little more than he was. She was barely recognizable as the bedraggled, starving, poisoned, wreck he had known on the planet. Now she was a dream of womankind, her hair clean and shiny, her eyes bright. The way they lit up at the sight of him was flattering.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Great, thanks to you. I’ve watched dozens of replays of me being carried by that team of stretcher-bearers you organized. It’s incredible! However did you do it?”

“Out of desperation. They’re smart little critters.”

“Well I can’t thank them, but I am eternally grateful to you.”

“No need. I’d have done it for anyone, even JC. It wasn’t just because you’re a red-hot sex bomb.”

“I bet that helped.” Golden eyebrows rose.

“You bet,” he admitted.

“So you do hope to cash in your IOU’s some time?”

His denial died stillborn. He nodded.

She said, “There is never any time like the present.”

Testosterone receptors started flashing in Seth’s limbic area.

“I’m still as weak as a newborn kitten.”

“I can fix that.”

He floated a little closer. “Sounds dangerous. I ought to get into shape first.”

“We must begin your training at once.”

He had to kiss her then. Her response was anything but sisterly, and for the next thirty minutes or so conversation was brief and incoherent.

Golden Hind’s shuttle had always been off-limits to everyone except the prospector, but Seth had invited Jordan up there a couple of times “for an inspection.” The inspections had been mutual and intimate. So he’d had experience in free fall sex and knew how it was done. If Meredith did not, she had a natural gift for it. Convalescence was going to be a lot less boring from now on. As they floated in recovery mode, still tightly entwined, he reflected that this had been the fastest wooing he’d ever heard of.

“Mm,” she murmured. “That was very nice. What’s your turnaround time?”

“Usually an hour or so, but after that epic, I feel like I’ll need a month.”

“Dylan used to manage a lap every twenty minutes.”

“Screw Dylan.”

“I did. I bet I can bring you up to speed too.”

“You have my permission to try.”

Meredith was not only an enthusiast, she was an expert. She came close−twenty-seven minutes.

Paradise was short-lived though. Two days later, Control reported that the convalescents should now be able to return to standard atmospheric pressure, and they both reported for duty. Everyone else except Jordan had succumbed to the mysterious plague. Reese had been first to go and ought to be first to recover. Golden Hind was drifting in a haven about two hundred light years from Cacafuego. So far Hanna had been able to retrace the incoming jumps, but no one was willing to step into her shoes as navigator. A few days’ delay hardly mattered on such a journey.

By evening, Jordan looked blurred and battered; she reluctantly admitted to having a headache, which was the first sign of the mysterious infection. Seth fetched the medic tester. As soon as it took a blood sample, Control ordered complete bed rest. Jordan gratefully staggered off in search of an empty bunk. Was Seth Broderick now in charge?

In the commodore’s stateroom, Reese was conscious, but apparently content to lie and stare at the ceiling. Tied down on the other bed like a beached whale, JC mumbled and twitched in delirium.

“Dr. Platte, ma’am, I have the honor of informing you that you are now the ranking officer aboard. Ma’am?”

Reese rolled her eyes in his direction without moving her head. While she did not look her legal age of ninety-four, she was certainly not at her best. Her hair was a limp tangle; the clumsy tuck in her lip was more evident than usual.

“What do you expect me to do?”

“Take charge, ma’am.”

“I’m not capable at the moment. You, on the other hand, are Mr. Know-it-all, the universal understudy for the entire crew. Consider yourself acting captain until further notice.”

Seth felt as if he needed to shake seawater out of his ears. Since when had Reese ever paid anyone a compliment, especially him?

“Is that an order, ma’am?”

“No, it’s a statement of fact. You are the most fucking infuriating asshole, Broderick. You could run this ship singlehanded. You always know best. You run up the wildest prospector’s plog in history, which will bring you billions. You discover the only other intelligent species in the galaxy, so the rest of us will get nothing. Giving you orders doesn’t do any good. You don’t even take direct orders from the captain. I’d report you for mutiny if I wasn’t so ashamed.”

Seth’s scalp prickled. Either Reese was still delirious or she had suffered serious brain damage.

“Just when did I refuse a direct order from the captain?”

“When he ordered you to rape me.”

“Ma’am, one of us is having delusions. Captain Spears never did that, and never would.”

“They told me they did.”

Those bizarre hints… “You actually asked Jordan to tell me to do that?”

“Of course. I begged him to. He said he had, pretty much. But you didn’t do it. You think I’m old and ugly, don’t you?”

Before he could bite his tongue off, Seth said, “Pretty much. I mean you don’t look so hot right now.”

“When did I ever look hot to you?”

Seth jumped for the door. He slammed it behind him and stood out for a few minutes in the corridor, shaking and sweating. Eventually he whispered, “Fucking never.” After that he felt better.

He went back to the control room, where a weary-looking Meredith was fixedly watching a line of camels parading along the aft wall. Seth spread both hands on the table, and appointed himself acting captain. With surprising little difficulty, he persuaded Control to recognize Meredith as his deputy.

“I’d rather be first mate,” she said.

“No, that was my singing teacher, ten years ago.”

“She must have been a real prima donna.”

“She was good on encores, although not in your class. Why don’t you go off and get some sleep? There’s one bed left in the middle cabin. I know GenRegs insists that a human be awake at all times, but this is an emergency, so we can overrule it. I’ll make myself comfortable in the mess.”

Meredith stood up and reached out a hand to him. “Why don’t we both mess around in the mess first?”

A gentleman never refused a lady, especially that one.

Apart from the hydroponics, which needed a few hours’ attention every week, the ship almost ran itself. That was fortunate, because the acting captain and his deputy were kept busy attending to the invalids. Age seemed to make a difference. Both JC and Reese took a long time to recover. Hanna bounced back surprisingly quickly and was the first to venture as far as the mess.

Seth found her there drinking coffee when he returned from giving the semi-conscious JC a sponge bath. Her gorgeous red-gold hair had recovered its shine and her smile was not far behind. Of course, anyone would look good after JC.

“You look much better!” he said.

“And you look as gorgeous as always.” She turned scarlet. “I didn’t mean to say that!”

“Please don’t let my natural modesty stop you if you have anything more to add along the same lines.” He headed for the coffee.

Hanna wrapped her hands around her cup and stared down at it, not meeting his eye. “I am deeply ashamed of the way I’ve treated you, Seth. I’ve always tried to live by the principles my parents… I mean… No, let me say my piece. I was brought up to believe certain things and have always abided by them and I have never had cause to question them, but I see now that this is no longer the world for which those rules were… I mean they don’t necessarily apply as strongly in today’s society when we have… like, medical advances, for one thing. And we have unmarried men and women shut up together in close proximity for very long times, and I understand that men, especially young men, have stronger needs than women do and I deeply appreciate that you never questioned my decision or argued, unlike some others I could mention, and I respect you very much for that and I respect you even more for that wonderful EVA you just completed and the way you rescued that Tsukuba bitch, and if you and I find ourselves sharing a cabin again on the way home, I will let you… I mean I will try to be more cooperative and understanding.”

Good God! Had the entire crew gone insane?

This was where Seth must say that he completely understood her feelings and respected her beliefs, and that he would on no account expect her to deviate from her principles for his sake.

The words stuck in his throat. He could not be such a hypocrite, after all the times he had lain in the dark and cursed her. The right answer would be something like, “Right on!” but he managed to keep it to a mumbled, “Thank you. I look forward very much to accepting your offer at the earliest possible—”

Face as red as her hair, Hanna jumped up and ran out of the room.

The day after that, she declared herself fit for duty and assumed command. She set to work planning the next jump, leaving Seth and Meredith to continue their hospital duties. Two days later, Jordan and Reese returned to work also. Only JC was still too weak to climb out of bed.

Seth ran into Jordan in the showers. He was shaving; she had been showering and emerged rubbing her hair with a towel. Eyes met in the mirror. Icicles formed amid the steam.

“Good to see you operational again, ma’am.”

“And you’re quite back to your old self, aren’t you?”

Seth examined his upper lip carefully, but decided that there was no escape from words like that spoken like that. “What do you mean?”

“Meredith Tsukuba’s a good lay, is she?”

Denying it would be futile. Crew behavior was the captain’s prime responsibility, so while Control would not gossip to other people, it would not refuse a direct question from the captain. Besides, women always knew such things by instinct. Although Seth had proposed marriage to Jordan, since then he and Meredith had been humping like alley cats. They might have been reacting to a harrowing shared adventure, or just indulging in rampant lechery. No matter; he was doomed whatever he said now. He shrugged.

“She’s really good—eager, inventive… Try her, next time you switch.”

He stared at his reflection. There was no cartoon icon above his head to indicate a flash of inspiration. But there should be! And like all great ideas it provoked a why-did-I-not-see-this-sooner? reaction. Blind idiot!

Meanwhile he had missed what the captain had said.

“Beg pardon, ma’am?”

“I said I have to reassign cabins. We’ll need to hot-bunk some.”

“I could fetch bedding from the shuttle, doss down in the elevator. Should be warm enough if we leave the door open.”

“We can do better than that.” The captain stalked over to the door.

Seth said softly. “Jordie?”

She looked back, eyes cold.

He said, “My offer is still open.”

“No, it isn’t.” She reached for the door handle.

“Wait!” Seth called. “We haven’t had the wake yet.”

The wake was a spacer tradition, an all-hands, no-holds-barred review held on quitting a world, when everyone concerned could report, brag, or complain. It could be a funeral or a celebration, or both.

Jordan’s glare informed Seth that it was the captain who called the wake. “I’m waiting until the commodore could join us.”

“I think it should be held as soon as possible, ma’am. Very urgent.”

“Why?”

“I believe it would be advantageous for, um, most of us.”

At that moment Reese came in. She glanced from one to the other and read the body language. “This a private fight, or can anyone join in?”

“Take a number.” Seth turned back to the mirror—where he saw both women blush.

Jordan said, “How’s JC, Reese? Could he attend a wake this afternoon?”