CHAPTER 6
Silver blades clashed in silence. Suited figures continued to spin and tumble in the weightless night. Beautiful Maria reached out to take Ubu’s hand. “I have a plan,” she repeated.
Pain eddied in Ubu’s chest. Mere inches away, holographic faces screamed in noiseless agony. “I don’t want to hear this,” he said.
“You just plan on lying here. Letting the proc and the judge do what they want.”
“They have my best interests at heart. That’s what they tell me.”
“Listen to me, Ubu.” She snapped off the holo unit. Her hand took his chin, turned his head to force him to look at her. Ubu wanted to shrink from the determination he saw in her face.
“We steal Runaway,” Maria said. “We run off past the Edge and find ourselves a black hole. We capture it and we come back. Then we pay our fines and penalties and go on doing what we have to do.” She shrugged. “It’s all your plan, basically. Except the first part.”
Ubu could feel her warm breath on his face. He closed his eyes. “We’d get caught. We always get caught.”
“Even if we are caught, how worse off could it be?”
“I don’t want to find out.”
She drew back, tilted her head, and looked at him meditatively. “I could do it myself.”
Ubu’s reply was sharp. “How?”
“Kit de Suarez said he would let us— let me— use one of Abrazo’s vac suits to get around the guard on station and enter through one of Runaway’s exterior hatches. He thinks we want to take off Maxim, some data and personal belongings. I can glitch one of the outside locks— that’ll be easy— and once I get aboard, I power-up the ship and blow station.”
A trembling bubble of sadness rose in Ubu’s mind. The whole plan seemed a path already too well trodden, laden with familiar hope and despair. “Oh, Maria,” he said.
Her eyes challenged him. “Why won’t it work?”
Heat flared in Ubu. “The other de Suarezes will find out. Your glitch will be detected. You won’t be able to power-up without someone noticing.” He waved his upper set of arms as his voice became a shout. “That Navy cruiser will blow Runaway apart. You won’t find a black hole for years. You’ll have an accident or get sick and you’ll die alone. All sorts of things can happen.”
“I’m going to go through with it,” said Beautiful Maria. “I’m going to take the ship and blow station. If you want to stop me, you know how to contact the proc’s office.”
“I don’t—”
Maria’s words were bitter. “Prove Marco right if you want. Give yourself a loser certificate.”
Rage roared through Ubu like a nova flame. He bit it off. “I said I wouldn’t make you use your talent again,” he said.
“You’re not making me do anything. Are you?”
“You’ll get hurt.” The words poured from him without thought. “You’ll get hurt, Maria. I don’t want to see that again.”
For the first time she looked away. Her voice was small. “It won’t be your fault. It never has been. Okay?”
Ubu said nothing. His anger had faded; there was a bitter pain in his throat. “I don’t want to lose you,” he said.
“Then come with.” She turned away, leaving him to his decision. Terror eddied through him. Another loss, he thought, another defeat.
“Yes,” he said, hopeless. “Yes.”
*
Two hundred hours. The second-level docking bay was silent, echoing distantly to the hum of autoloaders moving on the loading dock below. Kit, alone in the broad brightly lit space, shivered. By family standards at least, he was about to commit an act of treason.
There was a modulation in the light from the direction of the belt conveyor: someone stepping off. Kit cast an anxious glance and saw it was Ubu. He relaxed only slightly.
Beautiful Maria stepped off the conveyor just after her brother. Both wore shorts and T-shirts, their feet bare, small cases in their hands. The two approached.
“Bossrider,” he said. “Shooter.”
“Shooter.”
“Kit.” Maria had braided her hair into a single long braid that dropped down her back. Kit admired the revealed curve of her bare neck, her graceful ears. Dumb longing wrung his heart. He’d never seen anything so lovely.
“We’ll have to be quiet. The whole crew’s on board.”
Ubu’s look was sharp. “Anyone standing watch?”
“Not third shift. Not unless we’re loading. But just be quiet. Don’t want to wake anyone.”
Maria stepped close, squeezed his hand, kissed his cheek. Her lips were cool. “Thanks, Kit.”
Kit shrugged. “It’s okay.”
He turned and hopped to the personnel airlock. The others drifted floorward behind him as he tapped code. The lock opened with a slight hiss, as if it didn’t approve of what they were about to do.
Kit led Ubu and Maria through the accordion-walled docking tube and into the trunk airlock. From there it was a short skip past the steel-walled software locker, past storerooms, then into one of the cargo bays. The big room smelled of lubricant. Metal cargo containers, their enamel chipped, lay snugged down on alloy pallets, held by silver alloy straps and cushioned by plastic mats. An intermittently functioning red hologram fizzled in a corner, marking the crew lock. Kit headed for it.
The flickering red light seemed to spatter Ubu and Maria with blood. Kit punched the polished steel panel that opened the lock hatch. The hologram turned green as the hatch swung open, and Ubu and Maria moved like pale ghosts into the lock.
“Here are some vac suits I stashed,” Kit said. He looked at Ubu. “You’ll have to fold your lower arms on your chest; we don’t have any suits configured for you.”
Ubu nodded. “I’m used to it.”
Kit went to one of the suits and handed it to Ubu. “I let the chest out as far as I could.”
Ubu smiled. “Thanks, Kit. You did good.” Kit felt his anxiety diminish slightly. For some reason, even though he didn’t like Ubu, the boy’s approval somehow mattered.
“I figure we should keep radio silence out there,” Ubu said. “Someone might hear us. It’s a small chance, but they might.”
The suits were lightweight and went on easily. Peroxide hissed through nozzles as attitudinal jets were tested. Kit pressed the button to cycle the airlock. Air pumps began to throb. Kit bit his lip: would the sound of the cycling lock carry through the ship to where his people were sleeping? Marco was a notoriously light sleeper. If he recognized the sound he’d wonder at the noise being made at this hour.
The light over the outside hatch turned green. Kit rolled it open, then drifted through it. Sunlight stabbed at his eyes like thrusting daggers. He dialed up the polarity of his visor and the sun dimmed.
Kit’s pulse beat a fast pattern over the gentle hiss of the air supply. He gulped, tried to calm his nerves. Runaway was on the hub level above him. He spun in place, trying to recognize it through the helmet’s tunnel vision. Runaway rolled into sight, a shining, irregular assemblage of bright pitted metal. Kit headed for it, peroxide jets tugging gently at his suited form. Sweat trickled into his eyes.
One of the rotating station’s spokes eclipsed the sun, then the stabbing brightness returned.
Runaway grew larger. Yellow police seals had been placed on all the locks.
Maria flew past him to an airlock, braked, drifted against the skin of the ship. She peeled the police seal away from the lock mechanism and contemptuously flung it into space. Kit felt his heart lurch as the wadded plastic tumbled brightly away. It hadn’t really occurred to him that, besides going against Marco, he was about to break the law. He could actually get into trouble for this.
Too late, he decided, to worry about it now.
Ubu, one hand clasped around a castoff bar by the lock, watched as Maria floated over the lock mechanism. Cool suspense hummed in his nerves. He did not quite dare to hope this would work.
Maria placed her gloved hand over the lock, closed her eyes in concentration. Kit craned his neck inside his helmet but saw nothing: the glitch was invisible and fired in a fragment of a second. Maria drifted back from the lock, a distant smile on her face. Through his hand and the bar, Ubu could hear the throb of air pumps. He gave a startled laugh. They were in.
The lock hatch began rolling open. There was surprise on Kit’s face: he didn’t know how easily Maria could crash the lock. Ubu held his breath as he swung himself off the castoff bar into the airlock.
The airlock cycled; the inner hatch opened. Ubu cracked the seal on his helmet. Maria brushed past him and pushed open the inner hatch.
The air in Runaway was hot and close: the coolers and circulators had been shut down and Angelica’s sun had played on the ship for days. But still the scents and sights and textures were those of home, striking Ubu’s senses like a blow. It was real: they were past the guards and wards, back where they belonged. Ubu laughed again and shook out his long hair, then stripped off the vac suit and freed his lower arms. Stretching his cramped shoulder muscles, he stepped into the ship. Hope bubbled in him, a low boil. He didn’t dare believe in it.
They were aft of the fuge, in the thick trunk housing used for storage of food supplies, medical equipment, and personal inventory. Ubu turned to Maria.
“Why don’t you and Kit run off and have some fun?” he said. “We need to power-up some fuel cells to get our computer up and unload some data, but I can handle that by myself.” He gave a grin. “I’d sort of like to be by myself for a while anyway.”
Maria looked at Kit, held out a hand. “Sure,” she said. “Thanks.”
Kit seemed surprised. “Thanks, bossrider,” he said. He took Maria’s hand and the two of them moved aft.
“As long as we’re here,” Maria said, “let’s find some of my favorite hormones.” She led him into the medical bay.
Ubu turned and launched himself into the corridor leading to the centrifuge hub. Warm air brushed his skin, his hair. He was home and in motion.
He dropped from the hub to the bottom floor of the centrifuge, stepped into the command cage, sat down in the padded couch.
The ship systems board sat beneath a light scatter of grit, flaking paint fallen from the decaying polymerized inner walls of the fuge. Rows of red lights stared at him vacantly. Ubu reached forward with all four hands, touched controls, began fuel-cell initialization.
The trick was to power-up the ship without draining so much from the station power coupling that the heavy usage might call someone’s attention to the ship: that meant a slow and deliberate self-contained power-up, from the fuel cells to the maneuvering system pressurization, the singularity drive, and ultimately the reaction drive, reawakening necessary shipboard systems on the way, chiefly the computer and life-support.
Fuel cells came online. Ubu powered-up the inertial measurement and navigation unit and the Torvald main computer, then loaded primary maneuvering software. He enabled the radio and station communication coupling and listened for a long moment. He heard no alarms. He sat back and waited in the growing silence.
There was a yowl of complaint from the hub, and he looked up to see Maxim launch himself from the hub ladder, forepaws aimed directly at Ubu’s chest. Ubu grinned, his heart lightening, and braced himself for impact.
His reflex was based on living for too many days in one gravity: Maxim’s paws struck with the unexpected lightness of a feather. A pale cloud of stray hair rose from the collision like debris scattered by an explosion, and the cat rebounded. Clumsily, laughing, Ubu retrieved him. Maxim stood on his chest and leaned forward, eyes shut, and butted Ubu’s forehead, his purr thundering. The cat settled on Ubu’s chest while Ubu used his lower arms to stroke along the cat’s length. Ubu moved his seat forward on its tracks, his upper arms moving over the ship systems board, continuing his power-up.
It seemed possible, at last, to hope. He wanted to shout his pleasure aloud. His crew was together, his power-up was going unnoticed, and soon, within hours, he was going to have his ship back. The ship was coming alive, and he was coming alive along with it.
*
Maria bounded upward in the light gravity and drew on her shorts. Kit, swaying in her rack, reached toward one of the blower nozzles and directed a stream of cool air onto his humid skin.
“Ubu’s got life-support up,” he said. “He’s gotta have a lot of power systems online.”
“Holding at ten minutes.”
Ubu’s voice came smoothly from the speakers. Maria tossed her braid back, looked at Kit. Regret eased slowly into her heart. The time had come.
She drifted to the rack, sat, kissed him. The bed swung gently on its gimbals.
“Time to go,” she said.
He propped himself up on one elbow. “Don’t you need to pick up some of your stuff?”
She brushed his face with her fingers. Sorrow touched her throat, almost froze her voice. “Ubu and I aren’t leaving,” she said.
Kit’s eyes widened. Slowly he sat upright. “You’re—” he said haltingly.
“We’re taking Runaway out. To another Now.”
She tried to keep her voice calm, matter-of-fact. Kit stared at her for a long moment, his skin flushing. When he spoke his voice was thick. “You didn’t tell me.”
It was getting hard to watch him. “I’m sorry.”
“You... lied.” The word was reluctant.
Maria turned away, looked at her hand. “Yes. We didn’t want anyone to know.”
His body stiffened as another realization struck him. “I could go to jail for this!”
“We’d tell them you didn’t know.” She paused, looked at him. Kit swung his legs out of the rack, reached for his clothes, moving fast. One leg into his shorts, he straightened as if he’d remembered something. “What about Marco?” he demanded. He wasn’t looking at her. “Jesus Rice. If he found out about this, he might leave me in fucking Angelica Station forever.”
Maria reached up, touched his arm. “I don’t want to hurt you, Kit.”
He drew away from her. “I’m not gonna have anything to do with this. You and your damned brother are going to prison.”
Kit finished dressing, slid open the partition, and stepped into the second level of the fuge. The floor curved downward from him. He dropped to the nearest ladder, then began the climb to the hub. Beautiful Maria followed.
“You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?” Kit spoke through clenched teeth as he maneuvered to the airlock. “I’m not going to send myself to jail.”
Regret cut her like a broken, whipping cable. This wasn’t the ending she’d anticipated. “Kit,” she said. He ignored her, shot down the length of the hub, through the trunk corridor at the far end. He opened the inner lock door and stepped inside. The three vac suits lay empty around his feet.
Maria paused outside the lock door. Kit, breathing hard, was drawing on his suit. Pain beat in her throat.
“Kit,” she said. “You could come with us.” His movements slowed. For a moment Maria felt a flicker of hope.
He turned away. He could barely speak. Maybe he was crying. “Come with you to prison!” His voice turned to a shout. “You used me!”
“I care for you. I didn’t want to hurt you.” Sorrow stung her eyes.
“All you care about,” Kit took a deep breath, “is your family and your ship.”
“Not true.”
He turned to her. His face was blotchy and his voice was ragged. “You’re the same as Marco,” he said. “The only difference is that he’s honest about what he wants.” He pressed the CLOSE HATCH plate.
Beautiful Maria watched the hatch roll shut, helpless to appease his anger.
“I’m sorry, Kit,” she said. For some reason she thought of the black woman in the casino, Colette, walking with broken tread away from the rouge-et-noir table.
The hatch sealed, shutting her off from humanity.
*
Kit finished drawing on his vac suit, his fingers fumbling with the straps. In his frustration he kicked one of the spare helmets across the lock. It struck the padded outer hatch, rebounded, and went right for his face. Kit warded it off with an arm and kicked the other helmet.
After the suit was closed it seemed to take forever to cycle the lock. Kit bundled the two empty vac suits awkwardly in his arms. When the hatch finally opened he hurled himself through it. He didn’t bother closing the hatch behind him, just located Abrazo on the great wheel of the station’s hub and then jetted toward it.
Anger rushed aimlessly over his body, prickling the hair on his skin. His arms trembled as he stripped off the vac suit in Abrazo’s lock. At least, he thought, when Runaway bolted the station, no one would connect him with it.
The lights went green. He pressed the plate to open the inner hatch.
His blood went cold.
Marco waited quietly just inside the hatch, eyes glowing softly in their deep sockets.