CHAPTER SIX
Repair Bug
The ship was real and it was careful; the cross section they could see changed rapidly until it was presenting head-on, a pod at its back or belly. The beat pulse of the warn-aways filled the little cabin even with the volume down.
“What ship?” Chernak asked her partner.
“Unknown silhouette. My guess, based on size and conformation: a small tradeship, but it could also be a planetary cutter of some kind. It has the lines of a ship that behaves well in atmosphere. There are markings, which I have recorded; look for yourself.”
A finger flick sent the video to Chernak’s screen. It was on loop, and she zoomed in on the rerun.
Markings, yes. Several of what might be numbers, some of what could be letters, and an image that was eerily familiar to them, now.
“Grakow…” she said.
“Yes,” Stost said. “It is a cat, I think.”
Static spat, loudly, followed by—a voice. Words. The Bug’s computer reported several frequencies at work.
“Our vessel auto-replies,” Stost reported. “Orientation, sounding stats…”
Words again; they were…
“Familiar,” Chernak said. “They slide past my ear. Stost—do you have them?”
“Not clear,” said Stost, who was the better at languages, “but they’re coming.”
Lights flickered across the Bug’s simple board.
“They will make another attempt,” Chernak murmured…
The signal this time was static free, as the tradeship found a frequency more compatible with its own.
“Chicancha! Kerzong!” a voice stated, with surprising authority. “Bechimolaughingcatstandby.”
The voice might have been female, assuming human; the accent was…deplorable.
“Civilian,” Stost muttered, as he worked his station, seeking to wring every crumb of information possible from the small brain of their ship.
Data appeared on Chernak’s screen, among them the ominous information that the approaching ship had engaged shielding far stronger than mere meteor shields.
Faced with the wreck beneath them, Chernak thought, so would she. Also, she would have every weapon live and targeted directly on the stranger vessel.
Them.
With weapons very much on her mind, she slowed the Bug’s acceleration, overruling by main force the idiot vessel’s tendency to spin, so that they showed the same face to the unknown ship. It was rescue or doom, that ship, which was now seen to be adjusting course into an achingly slow intercept.
“Give them something,” she murmured, squinting at the screens. “Identification.”
Grakow made a noise like torn steel, but Stost spoke past it, slowly and clearly.
“Kerzong. Chernak Pathfinder. Stost Pathfinder.”
Time ran, their breathing was loud in the small cabin, their hands largely still, their eyes busy. Waiting, the soldier’s lot.
“Kerzong.” This was a new voice, light but, Chernak thought, male. So, at least two crew on the tradeship, as well.
“Kerzong,” the second voice said again. “Win Ton yo’Vala Scout.”
“He names himself?” she asked Stost.
“I think so; it would follow the pattern we offered.”
“Shall we speak again, then?”
“Let us wait a moment. He may have something else.”
In fact, Win Ton yo’Vala Scout did have something else; a question.
“Asmana Trang? Asmana Pathfinder chi Pathfinder?”
“Stupid accent,” Stost grumbled under his breath. “Will all of you always be made of Troop? Will all of you always be made of Pathfinder by Pathfinder? Even a civilian might learn tense!”
“They can count and they can hear,” Chernak said. “They have an undamaged spaceship, which they appear to handle with skill. We, my Stost, have an inspection buggy that grows…somewhat lower on amenities as time passes. Correct them gently.”
“Of course, Elder. I offer all courtesy.”
There was a sharp click as Stost depressed the key on his board. He spoke, proud, clear, and loud, as befitted one of the Troop, making the offer their service required.
“Asdameni Trang chist Pathfinder. Kaln zedatavant?”
He looked over his shoulder at her then, lips on the verge of giving away his smile.
“We two together are of the Troop, ranked as Pathfinders. Do you require the aid we might both provide you?”
* * * * *
Joyita had chosen Theo’s Screen Eight, as being visible to the entire bridge, to display the translation of the message from the repair boat.
Theo blinked; Kara laughed outright.
“Not awarding extra points, eh?” She shook her head, still grinning. “At least they don’t demand our immediate surrender!”
“There’s that,” Theo said. “Maybe they’re low on air.”
Joyita was positively beaming from his screen.
“This is excellent! We have started a dialogue! I am cross-filing, and building a dictionary. Dictionaries will be available at Win Ton’s station and at Theo’s, with cues. We should have a working pidgin very soon!”
He sounded, Theo thought, positively overjoyed. Of course, he was comm officer for a reason, and her understanding was that the…original, long-dead Joyita had been something of a linguist.
“Captain?” Win Ton murmured. “Your response?”
Right, her response. Theo thought about Kara’s laughter, and about her brother Val Con’s house guard of…former Yxtrang, who were chain-of-command oriented. She thought it might even be…soothing for people who had just been through…whatever it was that the people in the repair boat had been through, to get a nice, formal response from an authority figure.
So then.
She nodded at Win Ton.
“Please say that the captain thanks them for their offer, but this ship is secure. Work with them and with Joyita on getting this pidgin he’s so excited about on-line. We need clear communication about our intentions and methods. We’re going for a—a rendezvous and recover, and we don’t want any mistakes. Get a status report first; determine if they’re injured, or if they are in immediate need.”
Hevelin leaned against her suddenly, voicing a barely audible burble. She looked down, and felt a tickle along the edge of her mind, not quite the same as her link with Bechimo, and not at all like a trance-state conversation with Hevelin usually produced. The sensation faded, leaving an idea lodged in Theo’s mind.
She looked back to Win Ton.
“Determine who else is with them. All present, we want to know how many, and their condition. Also, permit them to know that Captain Theo Waitley commands this ship and this region of space.”
Win Ton produced a grave half-bow and turned to his dictionary screen.
“Explain to them that we’re translating from an incomplete dictionary,” Theo said. “Tell them—” Her voice broke, as she looked at the drifting remains of the wreck below them.
“Tell them,” she said carefully, “that we salute the valor of their efforts and offer honor to those who fell in the passage.”
* * * * *
“So then, Cat. That is you in this place, Grakow. Are you not pleased to have a kind here?”
Stost was bent low, elbows and legs braced against wall and floor. He spoke to Grakow as if to a comrade, while Chernak, feet in stirrups as she stood at the board in zero-G, coaxed information from their craft. She learned, laboriously, that the ship with which they conversed had several power sources. Despite being a trader, it showed multiple scars that had the very look of wounds taken in battle. Perhaps it was not always so peaceful as it now presented itself. It wasn’t unknown for traders to become pirates, at need, or at whim.
This research—it was a habit with her. She was a pathfinder, and the habit of seeking knowledge was, if not bred into her, then ingrained, first by training, then by practical experience. This ship—this Bechimo—had imposed itself upon them, so she must—must!—learn what she might about it…and from it.
The ship Bechimo was under the command of Captain Theo Waitley, who claimed likewise to be in command of local space.
And who, by a night march, could dispute that point? thought Chernak. Certainly, were the situation otherwise, she would claim for herself as much as there was to command in local space. But did Trade Captain Waitley believe she outranked two pathfinders? That was a troubling question—more than enough, certainly, to prompt a pathfinder to seek what answers she might find.
“Captain Waitley and her crew,” Stost said, apparently having concluded his conversation with Grakow, “have explained the rules of engagement very clearly, Pathfinder. They have refrained from the word rescue. They are respectful.”
He did this sometimes, Stost did, following her thoughts as easily as if they shared the same head, offering, if she might suppose it of him, comfort.
“Ship crew includes Comm Officer Joyita, and Liaison Officer Win Ton, to whom I speak most often. They have referred questions to a head tech, to the captain, perhaps to others. They have been clear that they intend as a matter of course to arrive elsewhere with us aboard at some point, and they have taught us both that the language of the Troop is an oddity to them, spoken rarely enough between them that they resort to dictionaries. Grakow, I note, they seem willing to accept as an equal.”
Chernak snorted, turned her head and met Stost’s eyes.
They smiled then, and perhaps Grakow did as well, as the trader ship’s logo hovered over them, laughing at the universe, if not at them.
* * * * *
“If the captain pleases,” Kara said, which was way more formal than Kara usually was in Terran.
Theo spun her chair, opened her mouth—and closed it.
Insofar as it could be said of someone with the natural Liaden golden skin tone, Kara was pale. Her lips were pressed tightly together, and her face was…rigid.
Frightened, Theo realized. Kara’s afraid.
She hadn’t thought there was anything in the wide universe that could scare Kara ven’Arith.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, quietly.
Kara drew a somewhat shaky breath.
“It is understood that the captain will be aiding survivors,” she said, and her voice was rigid, too. “One wonders if the captain is fully aware that these survivors are Yxtrang?”
“I am aware, yes,” Theo said carefully. She hesitated, then added. “They’re flotsam, Kara; just Jumped in from Galaxy Nowhere. Just like the teapot; exactly like Spiral Dance.”
“They are Yxtrang,” Kara repeated. “I am Liaden, Win Ton is Liaden. You, yourself, are half Liaden.”
Right. And Yxtrang, in the universe outside of this wyrd pocket of so-called safety, had…call it a long-standing habit of raiding Liaden worlds particularly, and just generally going out of their way to murder and abuse any ship and crew who happened not to be Yxtrang.
“Should we let them die?” she asked quietly, meeting Kara’s eyes.
Kara’s mouth tightened.
“My brother has three Yxtrang sworn to him,” Theo continued when it seemed clear that Kara wasn’t going to say anything else. “I’ve met them. They’re all very civilized, and not one of them tried to kill me. We have to assume that these survivors—these people, who are in mortal danger—that they’ll be civilized, too.”
“Kara’s concerns are not misplaced.” Win Ton spoke from his station. “While the captain of course cannot leave the survivors to their fate, now that they have been brought to her attention, perhaps we should create a…holding area for them.”
Theo considered him blandly.
“Take prisoners, you mean?”
He had the grace to flinch.
She looked to the copilot’s station. Clarence was monitoring the screens with commendable concentration; he didn’t turn his head, or meet her eye.
“Win Ton offers a reasonable compromise,” Bechimo said into the charged silence. “If these persons present a danger to the crew…”
“We don’t know that they present a danger to anybody!” Theo snapped. “What we do know is that they’re going to die out there in that repair jitney unless they’re picked up by another ship.”
She waved at the screens.
“It looks like we’re that other ship.”
“Indeed,” Joyita said cheerfully. “The captain makes a valid point. The survivors are newly arrived from the Old Universe, where they were sworn to protect civilians from the Great Enemy. As long as we are not the Great Enemy, we have no reason to expect violence from them. They have not been exposed to the predator-Yxtrang culture to which their service has devolved, in our own universe.”
He paused.
“I have the histories, Kara, if you care to read them. There is every reason to believe that the survivors are, as Theo has said, civilized.”
“And we’re going to treat them as civilized persons,” Theo said, “until they give us a reason to believe otherwise.”
Kara was looking down at her board. Her cheek had darkened in a blush, and Theo felt a pang. She took a breath, meaning to offer an apology—
“Aye, Captain!” Clarence said heartily.
Theo blinked, startled.
“Yes, Captain,” Win Ton said, noticeably less hearty, but with what sounded like goodwill.
Kara stared steadfastly at her board. She was chewing her lip, Theo saw. She felt a bump against her knee and looked down into Hevelin’s furry, greying face. Her vision blurred a little, and she felt enthusiastic approval.
“The ambassador lends his support to this rescue,” she said quietly.
Still, Kara said nothing.
“Kara,” said Bechimo gently. “I will allow no harm to come to my crew.”
“Right,” said Theo briskly. “Kara, you know I wouldn’t do anything to endanger us!”
That got a response; something on the order of a strangled laugh. Or a sob.
“Oh, Theo!” Kara gulped and flapped her hands. “Let them, then, be as civilized as a High House delm!” This time, it sounded closer to a laugh. “Aye, Captain!”
* * * * *
Chernak woke to a light beeping sound which was gradually increasing in intensity. She was thirsty and her left foot was trembling itself into a cramp. Also, she was getting hungry, though it was not yet an urgency and could be easily dealt with, for, among its many deficiencies, the repair bug held bounty; it was provisioned enough for several days of a three-person crew. She and Stost need not broach their pocket rations.
This beeping though…a proximity warning?
She opened her eyes to see the ship Bechimo looming so large in the port screen that nothing beyond it was visible.
Stost raised one hand gently, a distant relative of a salute, seeing that she woke. He sat with his chair at a quarter turn, so that he might monitor his own boards and hers, the port screen, herself…
It was a hard-working ship, Bechimo; that was apparent. Also, it was an experienced ship. Indeed, she had seen ships with combat scars, and this one had such signs, as she had seen in her prenap study. What she saw now were perhaps signs of missile exhaust—there, beneath the smile of the cat, which was—
Chernak blinked.
Yes. The cat was revolving, the ship moving in order to show them a different face.
“Good waking, Pathfinder!”
“Are we in danger, Stost?”
His hands indicated not particularly, which was an old joke between them. In this place and time it made her smile.
He chin-pointed to the newly revealed side of the trader, where there were perhaps locks and hatches and the like. It was a very busy surface right here.
“Were you going to permit them to suck us aboard without rousing me?”
He chuckled.
“Hardly, Senior. Presently, we are enduring an extremely close examination. Measurements are being taken. Apparently there are multiple choices for bringing us aboard.”
“So they have plans? Why did you let me sleep so long?”
His shrug was an elaborate denial of wrongdoing. Letting the shrug go, he looked her hard in the face.
“We have become creatures of exhaustion, and exhaustion is not the proper state in which to meet a commanding officer. Any commanding officer, much less the commander of all of local space. We will need our wits about us, in order to preserve our liberty, and see our mission to its proper end. That you slept so deeply is a measure of how much you needed to sleep, Elder.”
That had too much truth in it. That being so, Chernak made no reply. After a moment, Stost moved a hand, directing her gaze to the ship looming over them.
“The one Kara believes we must be brought on as internal cargo, which is a great deal of trust, do you think? There is a checklist they will read to us, cautions and orders, when we are both awake. Become ready, and I will open the voice channel again.”
He glanced at the wall of metal beyond them as it slowed and held true. There was writing there, beside the obvious slide hatch. He adjusted the side cameras, seeking more information as to location, found a small iteration of the Laughing Cat, and another, smaller design, one perhaps dominated by a tree. The lettering there was vaguely familiar, as if someone had slanted fonts and words he knew, and then done it one more time until he couldn’t be sure he knew it, after all.
“There is this, my Senior. The pod that they carry is a ship. I was not able to study it, but my impression was of a small cargo ship.”
He flipped a control and finally the beeping went away. In the background, then, she could hear Grakow snoring in his cocoon.
Stost gave her a hard look.
“This Captain Waitley, she collects expensive toys. It must be a fine thing, indeed, to be a captain-owner of two armed ships—and flying with both in her hand.”