I let a few moments pass, my hand still on his, then ask. “So what things did you enjoy as children?”

  He visibly struggles to shake off the mood. “Oh, anything in the air: kites, flying models, RC aircraft. We moved on to airplane gliders and anything that would fly: flitters, aircars, finally to true aircraft. If it had wings we flew it. Hell, we even built some jetpacks. That damn near killed both of us. Wrik was actually pretty good with one. Wonder if we could whip up some in the machine shop?”

  “No,” I reply. “They are inherently unsafe and tactically useless.”

  “Umm, I wasn’t actually… we’ll talk about that another time.”

  “When the answer will still be no.”

  “You’re going to be a great mother.”

  “Unlikely.”

  “I wouldn’t bet against it.”

  I pat his hand again. “Finish your dinner.”

  Now why is he laughing again, I wonder?

  I allow Delt to slide back into comfortable banality and returned to my daily maintenance of the ship and study of all that is known of Piola. But the work of existing as a living being among other living beings consumes much of my time and power. Sometimes so much so that I reduce the effort I put into it around Dusko or Olivia, who are not as important to me, or as interested in my having a personality.

  So the day closes and Wrik and I turn in for the night in our cabin. We go to bed early and make love. I enjoy the experience, but a part of me wonders what it will be like if Shasti Rainhell can create a body for me.

  Wrik and I wake in the morning, which means he awakens and I stop considering the 2,523,956 items I am examining and focus on him.

  He sighs. “You look as fresh and beautiful as when you lay down last night. I, of course, need a shower and it’s time for the weekly depilatory.” He scratches at a shade of beard.

  “Could be worse,” I say. “Males used to drag bits of sharpened steel over their faces in the old days.”

  “Or the not so old days,” he replies. “It’s still common on Retief, along with racism, rebellion and other old-fashioned practices.”

  He heads for the shower as I admire his form, quite satisfied with my choice of boyfriend. He remains lean, but is filling in around the shoulders and upper arms.

  Delt and I handle the transshipment of supplies from the sled, easiest for me who is both strong and doesn’t need a suit. I finish in a quarter the time it would take the others and we accelerate outward to the jumppoint, able to use power at levels we wouldn’t dare with so much distance to cover and unknown perils to face. The Confederacy is desperate enough to provide us with a fleet of tankers. Speed is of the essence, but it is still days to the jumppoint and the ship slips back into her normal routine.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Maauro and Delt went over to inspect the sled for a final time before jump, Maauro never being content with any gifts from Candace Deveraux unless she checked them herself. Delt took the opportunity to mischievously paint the name “Fetch” on the forward hull. The name stuck and we all took to calling the sleds “Fetches.”

  The Fetches had another purpose. There were cold storage chambers in them, if we recovered any survivors, or suffered a casualty, we could send them back to the Confederacy in one. The first Fetch would travel out with us and orbit the initial world we would search. The others would lurk near the jump points of the systems we planned to visit. With them, we would have enough range to jump anywhere in what was known of the Piola quadrant.

  We reached the standing blockade on the third day on course for the jump to Piola. There a supply ship topped us off allowing us to save the Fetch One for later need. I was determined to keep us as prepared as possible. As we passed through the ranks of warships at .9c, Fetch remained in formation with us. I drew long slow breaths as we raced down toward the jumppoint. This was a small one, only 1,000 kilometers in diameter. Only the sled was near us.

  “Wish some of these formidable warships were going with us,” Dusko grumbled.

  The reckless smile I’d seen so often back in the Ncome Commando days flashed on Delt’s face. “Where’s the fun in that, Dusko, my old salt. More glory for us.”

  “Glory be damned,” Dusko said. “I only hope we are getting paid—”

  “Fabulously,” Maauro interrupted, “quite fabulously and equal shares this time.”

  “Ah,” Dusko said, looking pleased.

  “For you mercenaries,” Olivia shot back. “Some of us have to be satisfied with flight and hazardous duty pay.”

  “Some of us had a choice about going,” Maauro returned coolly.

  “Well, whatever the reasons for going,” I said, cutting off whatever was starting up, “we just passed the point of no return. Secure for jump. Forty-five seconds to jump horizon.” Everyone, including Maauro, belted in. I reached out with that sixth sense that pilots use. There is a feel to the correct approach to the jump point and it was not totally instrument dependent. The jumppoint distorted space-time and a pilot learned that distortion. Within a specified parameter, the exact approach was up to me. I felt, considered, and adjusted as the clock ran down. We jumped.

  The universe reestablished itself around us. Foreign stars glowed down at us from the portals and canopy. Maauro was up instantly, looking out at the new stars, adding them to her mental collection. The rest of us suffered through mild jump disorientation. I gulped my restoratives and anti-nauseants, as did everyone but Maauro. The jump had not been a bad one, but the usual queasiness was present.

  Because the jump point was anomalous, we’d materialized back in normal space farther into a star system than was normal. It was only hours to the gas giant that we used for air-breaking. Then, with our faithful Fetch, we headed for the inner system and the wildcat colony that had popped into existence when the new jump point was discovered.

  We refueled again from the sled, for all that we’d used little fuel or other supplies. “Bit of an anticlimax,” Delt said, his eyes riveted to the scanners. “No hordes of enemy starships waiting for us.”

  Dusko sighed

  “It’s not likely that whatever is upsetting this sector would be waiting right here,” Maauro said, missing the satire as she occasionally did.

  Delt smiled, but let it ride.

  The world ahead had no official name, so we used the unofficial one that Free Traders and other colonials had bestowed on it, Windrush. On the fourth day into the system, we came within sensor range.

  “It’s not the friendliest of worlds, only the equatorial regions approached habitability for biologicals,” Maauro said, looking at the planet ahead, easily visible to the naked eye.

  “Yep,” Delt said. “Looks mostly like cold, dead rock.” He was peering into a scanner amped to greater magnification.

  “And mostly is,” Maauro said. “In the summer time, there is liquid water in the equatorial regions and edible fish in the seas. Some land animals with tradable furs exist, so the first colony was sited there, but it was always intended as a way station for further exploration. When more habitable worlds were found further out in this sector, the expansion here cooled off.”

  “Was that a pun?” Dusko grumbled.

  “Why would anyone want to plant even a waystation on this rock?” Delt said, before Maauro could reply.

  “Don’t be so delicate,” Olivia scoffed. “It has sunlight, air you can breathe, water you can melt, or desalinate, and gravity similar to home. Your body will work tolerably there unless your power fails. You’ve spent too long on nice planets near Goldilocks Zones around yellow suns. Compared to a lot of places I’ve been, this is a garden spot.”

  “Remind me never to go on vacation with you,” Delt said.

  “You should be so lucky,” Olivia returned, but I thought a slight smile played over her lips.”

  “Anything on instruments?” Delt asked me.

  I deferred to Maauro with a gesture.

  “Nothing,” she said. “No disaster beacon. No calls for help. There was a small satellite system here. I am not detecting any signals from them, or indeed any indication of even dead satellites in likely orbits.”

  “We’ll be coming up on our first approach over the capitol city, such as it was, of Downstairs, in twenty minutes,” I advised.

  “Funny name,” Delt said.

  “Maybe all the good ones were taken,” Dusko said dryly.

  “Maauro,” I said, “bring all weapons and ECM on line. I’ll leave those to you.”

  “Better watch out,” Olivia said. “I think she longs to try out our pocket battleship’s new loadout.”

  Maauro nodded. “Yep, blasting aliens is my thing.”

  “You could be in trouble, Dusko,” Delt said.

  “Ahem,” Maauro replied. “To me, you’re all aliens. I only look human. Remember?”

  Everyone settled after that, eyes on their own boards, as Stardust made her first run over the colony world. I dropped us to 2,000 kilometers over the planet’s surface. We came in with the sunrise, the light from the system’s primary casting a gray and ghostly searchlight over the unlovely world. Wine-dark seas crashed against rocky coastlines under thin clouds. Then a great bay opened under us.

  At the middle of the arch of the bay were a spacefield, docks, and the usual low, broad, prefab buildings along with a smattering of local construction. The town of Downstairs lay still, in shadow, and no lights showed. Our vertical perspective gave us no opportunity to look in windows.

  Maauro stood over her instruments, manipulating them directly without something as crude as using fingers. Images zoomed and flickered through differing spectra. “Wrik, I see signs of damage. There are fire-engines deployed, but abandoned. I see decomposed bodies in the street.” Images of bones and burned buildings began to build.

  “Ground fighting?” Delt asked.

  “Doesn’t look like it,” Olivia said. “There’s a pattern to such and I don’t see it here. It could have been riot, civil disorder or some natural disaster.”

  “I concur,” Maauro said, “the base does not look like it was subject to weapon fire. There is….”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “We now know what has struck here,” she said, her voice grim. The image changed; we were looking down at the space field. In large block letters, the word, “Plague” was painted in reflective paint in the tarmac.

  “My god,” Delt said.

  “Yeah,” I added, rubbing my hand over my face, plague, the dread of the spaceways, an unknown disease.

  “Maybe it’s just Vibor fever,” Delt said.

  “No,” Maauro said. “There would have been some medications for Vibor, especially on a colony world on the frontier. This is very likely something new and effective on multiple races. Also, it is not likely that some pathogen was here when the first ships came. This world was found by Survey and the usual thorough tests made. It could be something that came in off another ship, or something that came from space. Or it could be—”

  “Chemical or biological ordnance,” Olivia said. “Broad spectrum stuff like was used in the Conchirri wars. It could be an attack.”

  “We have no way of telling,” I said, “and there’s no prospect that we can land and find out.”

  “There’s no prospect that you can,” Maauro corrected.

  “No,” I said, rising.

  “Wrik my love, you worry unnecessarily. I am not susceptible to any disease.”

  “But when you come back—”

  “I can coat myself with plasma fire and stand in utter vacuum while I do so. No virus, germ or other contaminant can survive me.”

  “And the shuttle you would land in—” Olivia asked.

  “I will scan it for contaminants, decompress it and if needs be decontaminate it with radiation and anti-biologicals. Even Vibor cannot survive that. There are small risks, but we cannot escape all peril. Our mission requires information.”

  “But you down there… alone...”

  “My Dear, the issue is more your exposure to the disease. I judge the risk all but nonexistent, or I would not even consider going down.”

  “Truly?”

  “Yes.”

  I sighed. “The pinnace then.”

  “The sooner I go, the sooner I will be back.”

  I looked at her.

  “Wrik, honestly, I see no danger.”

  “I am not happy about this,” I said.

  “I know, but it has to be done.”

  “Alright but be careful.”

  “I promise.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  I leave the bridge after kissing Wrik and giving Delt a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder. Before going, I take off my small, yellow, silk scrunchie; it would not be safe to take it with me into a plague zone. I head down the scoutship’s narrow central corridor to the compact bay where the pinnace sits. The slender, atmospheric, four-seater, with its folded wings, still wears its Confed colors of dark-blue and gray from when we used it at Cimer. The pinnace is quickly made ready, I load my armspac aboard. The dark-gray, boxy, 150 pound weapon has its own rack in the pinnace. With its loadout of armor piercing bullets and AP and HE missiles it gives me more long –distance firepower than is built into me.

  While I do not expect to meet enemies in Downstairs, I will use all caution as I promised. Wrik stays at the controls of the Stardust, knowing that even he cannot preflight the pinnace as thoroughly as I do with my sensors. I launch fifteen minutes after leaving the bridge, on route to the dead city below.

  The pinnace’s nose glows a cherry red as it drops from orbit. Now, I am high in the atmosphere, cooling rapidly and dropping through thin cirrus clouds toward the slate grey sea. No sensors track me, and nothing threatens my ship. I circle over the small city. There are no ships on the field, only the painted warning.

  “Maauro,” Wrik’s voice sounds in my head. “What do you see?”

  “Only what you have from orbit. From this point, you will see through my eyes and hear through my systems.”

  “Ok. Don’t take any chances.”

  “I promise.”

  When the ship’s landing jacks are fully down, I leap out, armspac in hand. I sample the wind; extend every sensor and power up the tiny labs inside my body, hunting the culprit that has destroyed the colony. But the enemy is elusive at this stage.

  “Anything?” Wrik demands, his voice cracking with tension.

  “I have my biofilters at maximum, but am detecting nothing.”

  I move toward the buildings and see my first bodies. They are desiccated, partly gone to bone, but I note that the bodies are not scavenged. I extend my sensor array and realize there are no birds, or other animals in the area. Even insects are absent. The destroyer here has been most lethal, even the decomposition is from microbes.

  I kneel beside the remains of a middle-aged, human female. Paint is on her largely intact clothes. “This person painted the message. She must have used her last strength to do so.”

  “Any ID on the body?” he asks.

  “No,” I reply. “No way to know who she was in life. We can only honor the act, with no chance to honor the doer.”

  “A soldier known only to God,” Olivia says into the silence.

  “Not the usual sort of war,” Wrik said, “but a deadly battle none the less.”

  From there, I move into the buildings and find more bones. I exit the small warehouses by the field and walk toward the main port building, a combination of landing control tower and seat of government, typical in a small colony. Wind-blown grit crunches under my feet as I walk over the permacrete. I keep the large boxy shape of my armspac level in front of me. The light remains poor, but this does not trouble me, though for the sake of the others I sometimes beam visible light from my eyes so they may see better. There are small vehicles scattered about. Some have bodies in them. Fire has destroyed part of the main building I am approaching.

  I push open the glass and metal doors under a sign that says, ‘Welcome to Downstairs’. Inside is the spacefield control station. All the computer panels are dark as are the holo-emitters. Wind-blown debris covers some of the windows. I run a power lead from my body to energize the systems, scanning through the recent entries. All seemed to be well with the colony until 207 galactic standard days ago. A ship in the system broadcast a distress call cut off in midword. Then a shape overflew the colony, blocking out the sunlight. There is little description— just a massive shape, whether ship, device, or something else, the log offers no clue. It was there, then the light was gone as it eclipsed the base, then it was gone. The light returned, but with it came something else. Life itself seemed under attack. Soon animal life of every type withered and died. Only microbic animals seemed to survive.

  The local doctor was unable to cope. There were no scientists of any note to help him. People were falling ill. Many raved of a presence, a power that had to be appeased, worshipped even. The doctor put it down to brain distortions caused by the disease. But he had no time for more than recording the initial stages of the plague before he succumbed. From onslaught to the end of recording was merely thirty-five hours.

  I take a fragment of bone from the nearby body of a human male and pull it into my labs where it is tested to destruction. Nothing that could possibly be infectious will go back to the ship.

  “They had little time,” I broadcast to my friends in geosynchronous orbit above me, “a standard day and half from onslaught to the end. The colony was typical of a wildcat operation, not much in the way of records, and what’s left is fragmented. The population of the colony might have been 2,743 beings, a mix of most of the major Confederation races. None seem to have survived. I have downloaded all that is in their systems and we can consider it later.”

  “Don’t linger.”

  “I will not, but I hope to find a body with more soft tissue here. One that was less exposed to the elements. There is nothing useful in the bones that I have analyzed.”

 

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