Chapter 9
“That’s the kosmarch’s transport?” asked the short, plump officer who floated next to General Ekk, in the receiving lounge of Ekk’s destroyer. The transparent wall before them showed the blackness of space, followed by the huge sphere of the planet Jaalit—with Jaalit’s yellow-white sun illuminating a crescent along half of Jaalit’s circumference. A small, cone-shaped ship, recently launched from Jaalit’s surface, was carefully maneuvering upward, so as to mate with the destroyer’s docking assembly.
“Yes it is,” Ekk said.
“Allowing her to come on this mission is a mistake,” the plump man said.
Ekk’s laughter was harsh. “Do you think I had a choice? If you’d bothered to complete flag school, you’d realize what kind of suicide it would be for me to openly defy the wishes of the kosmarch. Mistake or no, she’s going with us. And we’re just going to have to suffer through it. You especially, Colonel Jun.”
The short, rotund man’s face—already scowling—dropped into an even deeper expression of disapproval. “I have no stomach for the rhetorical knife fights at the flag level,” Colonel Jun said. “Besides, the Waymakers are much more interesting. When I had the chance to get off the line of command, and convert my commission to academics, I jumped at it.”
“Still happy with your decision?” Ekk said. “It didn’t save you, ultimately. Because the kosmarch is going to be yours to deal with. On the other side.”
“True, old friend. But I have an advantage you don’t: I’m already dying.”
To punctuate his point, the plump officer pulled a cloth from his pants pocket, and coughed into it several times.
Ekk’s expression softened, and he turned his face away.
“I’m sorry that the cancer is getting worse.”
“It is what it is,” Jun said. “I’m just going to meet the black unknown a lot sooner than the rest of you. Which means there’s nothing our beloved kosmarch can threaten me with.”
“Or so you think,” Ekk cautioned.
Jun merely coughed a few more times into the cloth, then slipped it—folded neat—back into his pocket.
“My parents are gone. My sister is gone. I have very few friends whom I acknowledge openly. Who could she hope to use against me, as leverage? I do not fear death. I embrace it. Also, Golsubril Vex aside, I never in my lifetime imagined I’d have this chance. To go beyond the Waywork. To see something new.”
“How do we know there’s anything worth finding over the Slipway?”
“Oh, there’ll be something worth finding, all right. I don’t believe in random coincidences, Ekk. You know that. Something or someone made this happen. Now. At this specific moment. All that remains is to go, and find out who. And what. And why. The knowledge of an unknown and still largely unexplored universe, potentially at my fingertips. The chance to obtain answers. Perhaps even make contact!”
“Contact with what, Colonel?”
“Who knows? The Waymakers, maybe. Does it really matter? Sitting around resifting the sands of Waywork worlds…certainly wasn’t getting us anywhere. We’ve already found everything that’s worth finding, and it hasn’t told us much. We have the Keys. We have bits and pieces of inert Waymaker technology. Some archeological digs on a few worlds, showing us very, very little. And absolutely nothing to tell us why the Waywork was originally built, or what it’s for, or why the Waymakers let it go five thousand centuries ago.”
“Why do such questions fascinate you?”
“Because…it all has to mean something. Somehow. There must be a bigger context.”
“Would this ‘bigger context’ cure your lungs?”
“No, but I might die believing there’s more to the universe than the random assembling of molecules—that there is a power greater than ourselves, to make sense of it all.”
“Careful, Colonel. The commissars frown on that kind of talk. We aren’t primitives like Starstate Constellar.”
“Primitives!” Jun spat, and laughed harshly. “We tell ourselves we’re better than they are, yet they have stubbornly resisted us, while possessing barely a quarter of the resources. We chip away at their nation with chisels and hammers, splitting off a system here, and a system there. Oh, we’ll own it all, eventually. But in the process, I think we may lose a great deal. There’s a quality to those people which we, in our great regard for ourselves, sorely lack.”
“Now you’re talking heresy,” Ekk remonstrated his smaller colleague. “Cancer or no, if we had any junior officers present, I’d have you escorted out of here and locked up until you’ve come to your senses—and recanted your opinion.”
“I promise to keep my rantings to myself, for the duration,” Jun said.
“You’d better, because it will be me taking the fall. I vouched for you with the kosmarch, after all.”
The cone-shaped transport had gotten significantly closer. Small flashes from the holes on its nose and flanks indicated the pilot’s careful use of reaction control thrusters as he maneuvered the surface-to-orbit ship for final docking. In short order, the mechanical sounds of ship-to-ship mating filled the air, and both Ekk and Jun grasped handles over their heads—to keep from being tossed around the receiving lounge. Even small amounts of energy could produce big effects in the weightlessness of space. Anything not explicitly secured to a bulkhead could become a potential missile.
A hatch at the other end of the lounge unsealed, and several space-suited figures appeared. They visually inspected the hatch seal, then used the grip surfaces on the bottoms of their boots to attach themselves to what more or less passed for a floor. Coming to rigid attention, they waited silently as the kosmarch appeared.
Colonel Jun had never met the woman. She reminded him of a cat as she slipped through the hatch and greeted General Ekk with a simple nod of her head.
“Madam Kosmarch,” Ekk said formally. “Welcome aboard the Alliance. Once your transport has undocked, we can begin final preparations for departure to the Waypoint.”
“How long to the estimated Waypoint transit radius?” the kosmarch asked.
“If we achieve a nominal balance of thrust to fuel and fluid use, I estimate we can reach the coordinates within two weeks.”
“Too long,” she said. “I want us there in no more than ten days.”
Colonel Jun watched Ekk wince slightly.
“Is there a problem?” she asked.
“The ship can do it,” Ekk said hesitantly. “In fact, all of our vessels can. It’s just that…well, we’d be thrusting at a significant percentage above normal gee, at the same time we’d be using up fuel and working fluid which we may not be able to easily replace once we’ve crossed over. There won’t be any resupply ships coming in our wake. And there will be no friendly docks anticipating our arrival. Thrusting beyond normal gee can be uncomfortable, even for an experienced crew. I doubt you’d want to have to endure that kind of thing for very long, Madam Kosmarch. Besides which, our intelligence already indicates that there’s nothing the nearest Constellar system could move ahead of us which would pose a serious threat to our squadron. Whether they arrive first or we arrive first, we’ll outgun them by a very significant margin.”
Jun watched the woman evaluating Ekk’s report. She was strikingly beautiful. No surprise, that. All kosmarchs were drawn from a class of people genetically designed for leadership. This included looks, as well as brains. Her eyes were brightly intelligent, though also somewhat cold. They glanced from Ekk, to Jun, and back again, as if the kosmarch were trying to decide which of the two officers to punish first.
Then…she inhaled deeply, exhaled once, and relaxed.
“Very well, General. I will accede to your superior knowledge on these matters. When we get to the other side, we need to be prepared to fight. If taking more time to reach our Waypoint on this side will increase our chance of success on the other, that’s reasonable. Can I assume that your companion is the man you’ve been telling me about?”
“Yes, Madam Kosmarch,” Ekk said, visibly relieved. “Colonel Jun is the foremost scholar on Waymaker relics and science to which we have quick access.”
“Madam Kosmarch,” Jun said, dipping his chin to his chest. “I am at your service.”
“Yes you are,” she said matter-of-factly. “Since we have such a long time to wait, before making the actual crossing, I expect an in-depth briefing on everything you know about Waymaker technology, as well as what we might expect to find on the other side.”
“Madam,” Jun said, being sure to make sure his voice was clear, but not forceful, “I can tell you what I know. But I’m hesitant to speculate.”
“Then what good are you, as a Waymaker expert?” she asked.
A fair question, Jun had to admit. Though he got the impression that if he didn’t quickly provide her with a logical answer, she’d be showing him to the nearest airlock.
“There’s still so much about them that we don’t understand, Madam Kosmarch. We’ve never found any cities, nor any surviving records. Not even fossilized remains. We guess what their basic anatomy may have been like, based on some of the tools recovered. Tools which don’t always appear to have an obvious purpose, I might add. I have a great many personal theories, but I don’t want them to be the sole informers of your decisionmaking—regardless of which side of the Slipway we’re on.”
“Prudent thinking,” she said. “But I still want to hear what you’ve got to say. Include whatever materials you consider relevant, and necessary. I want something new for each evening meal with the other officers aboard. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Madam Kosmarch,” Jun said, and touched his chin to his chest one more time.
With that, Golsubril Vex maneuvered herself out of the receiving lounge, followed by a small platoon of guards, servants, and other hangers-on who all saw to the kosmarch’s comfort, safety, and needs. Once they had departed, the space-suited crew of the transport visibly relaxed, and one of them used a handrail to pull herself over to where General Ekk waited.
“With your permission, sir, we’ll be departing now. Unless there’s anything else?”
The general waved the woman off, and nodded his head. She took her crew back through the hatch, which sealed tightly behind them. Followed by the mechanical sound of the transport uncoupling itself from the Alliance’s dock.