Ending the recording and the external broadcast, she patched it into a loop, letting the ship"s automated systems repeat her message. Turning to the ship"s internal comms, she addressed the crew.
"Attention, all hands, this is the Captain. We have twelve Salik warships within three million kilometers of our position. We have one shot at getting out of this mess. Listen closely to the following orders: If you are sick, I want you to vomit on whatever nonvital surfaces are within range of the interior pickups. Do not hit anything sensitive," Ia stated dryly, "but the floor and the furniture are all fair game. I want evidence that we are sick, and I want it all over this ship. Infirmary, grab a list of everyone who hasn"t eaten anything in the last six hours, and dispense oral emetics for the unaffected crew to carry at all times; bounce it on the triple time. Lifesupport, get ready to screw up the numbers three and four fish tanks in Bay 1, and kill at least a dozen hens. Do your best to make them all look like a bacterial or viral death, not a physical one, and send some of the fish and hens to the infirmary for examination."
"Captain, we"re getting pingback from the Salik vessels," Lieutenant T"siel told her, craning his neck to look past the edge of his monitor banks.
"I repeat, this is Captain Ia," Ia stated, finishing her instructions to her own ship. "If you are sick, retch it up for the shipboard cameras. Infirmary, dispense emetics to the off-duty crew, and get some up to the bridge. Lifesupport, make it look like whatever we"ve got is. .h.i.tting the other species on board. These are your orders for now; more will be coming shortly." Cutting off the interior comms, Ia lifted her chin at T"siel. "Put them through on audio, Lieutenant, and make it bridgewide incoming, but only my headset outgoing."
"Hhewman vessel Vasco da Gammma," the bridge comms relayed. "Your desssception will not save hyew. We outnumber you. Open hhyour airlocksss or be destroyed."
"This is Captain Ia of the Vasco da Gama to the Salik vessels. This is not a deception. We have dead V"Dan gamehens and dead Solarican carp on board. Whatever is in our water, it is jumping interplanetary species and killing the lesser life-forms. We are under Quarantine Extreme. Any attempt to board this...You know what?" she asked, switching tone and topic abruptly. "I would love to see you board this ship. I would love to open my airlocks to all of you, just to see if this whatever-it-is affects your biology, too.
"Unfortunately, by the conventions of Sentientarian s.p.a.cefaring Aid, I am obligated to warn you that my ship is under Quarantine Extreme. Of course, by those same rules of Quarantine Extreme, you are permitted to transfer a maximum of two duly informed medical personnel to this vessel, with the understanding that they will also potentially be at risk for lethal interspecies contamination," Ia stated. "You think this is a bluff? Well, I"m calling that bluff. If you wish to board this ship, you will select two duly informed medical personnel and transport them, and only them, in a boarding pod to our midships sunward airlock at the end of this ion storm."
"And hhavve hhyew kill them? Or try to essscape while we wait for the pod to connnehhct?" The sibilant reply came from whoever was broadcasting on behalf of the twelve alien ships.
"Captain, they"re altering course, heading our way," Shinowa warned her.
Bruer breathed hard, groaned, and unstrapped his restraints, lurching out of his seat. Unlike Vizzini, he made it to the door. They could hear him casting the contents of his stomach on the corridor floor outside, before the panel slid shut again.
"By the rules of Sentientarian s.p.a.cefaring Aid, any medical personnel who volunteer to go to the aid of other starships are to be considered inviolate and unattackable, so long as they conduct themselves in a manner befitting sentientarian aid, and do not engage in any acts of injury, damage, terrorism, espionage, or warfare. By my word of honor as a Captain of the Terran s.p.a.ce Force, I and my crew will abide by these rules of conduct so long as your observers abide by them.
"If you choose to send them," Ia bartered, "your two volunteers will be treated as noncombatants for as long as they remain neutral and render nothing but observation and sentientarian aid. Furthermore, I will personally guarantee that, if this illness is discerned as curable for your species and they are given quarantine clearance, they will be returned to either your vessels, to Sallha, or to one of its outlying colonies unharmed, whichever is nearest, in strict accordance with the conventions of the code. However, until this illness is resolved and cured, they will be locked into this ship under Quarantine Extreme, the same as the rest of my crew."
Seconds stretched into minutes as they considered her offer. However, none of the Salik vessels fired on the da Gama, though they did spread out and turn to follow her backwards-sailing course. The bridge door slid open and a cadet in the grey-striped blues of an infirmary medic hurried inside, a bottle of pills in his hand. Ia accepted two from the man, tucking them into her shirt pocket. As he left, the Salik pinged them again.
"The lengthhh of Quarantine Extreme is unknown. Will hhyew provide sssssussstenance for our volunnnteers?"
The query was followed by the pop-pop-pop of the speaker smacking his lips. The insult, Salik-style, was one delivered to their enemies just before the amphibious race tried to eat their sentient prey. The few cadets remaining on the bridge shuddered, save for their acting captain.
Ia smiled. If they had been communicating via the vidscreens instead of merely via audio, she would have bared her teeth, too. "Most cheerfully, I am required to inform you that feeding potentially contaminated food sources to sentientarian aid-givers is against the rules. Whoever you send will have to bring sufficient supplies of non-sentient foods from their own stores, or chew on the standard Terran ration packets like everyone else...and I"ll remind you that this disease is hopping between species, so even your non-sentient live food sources will be at risk for contamination."
Behind her, the door opened, admitting the duly a.s.signed third-watch bridge crew. Most of them had bleary eyes from lack of sleep. A few swallowed quickly, grimacing at the smells left by the missing cadets. With quiet murmurs coordinating everything, they swapped places one at a time with the remaining bridge crew, or left to grab cleaning equipment to sterilize the hastily emptied stations.
"Captain," T"siel warned her, not yet giving up his seat. "The Salik are pinging us again."
Nodding, Ia let him put it on bridgewide broadcast once more. "This is Captain Ia. You have something to say?"
"Bring your ssship to a sstop, Hhewmans," the Salik speaker ordered. "We will sssend over two obserhhvers."
"Lieutenant Shinowa-ah, sorry, Lieutenant Pushnatta, what"s the status of the ion storms?" Ia asked, adjusting to the change in bridge crew.
"Still going strong, Captain," he replied, checking his screens.
Shinowa patted him on one restraint-strapped shoulder and picked her way out of the bridge. She, too, had eaten the food from the galley. "I"ll report to the infirmary to get my digestive tract pumped, Captain-I"m sure that sounds much more pleasant than it actually will be, but I was the last one to eat and get back, so I"m bound to be contaminated."
"Good idea. Dismissed, Lieutenant." Flicking open the channel once more, Ia addressed the aliens. "Negative, Salik vessels. The ion storm is still too strong to launch a boarding pod at this time. Accompany us to system"s edge, on our current heading and speed. When we"re...four hours lightspeed ahead of the solar storm front, we"ll come to a stop, effect repairs from the asteroid we hit, and board your volunteers."
"Negative, Hhhumans. Hhyew will sstop now and outwait the sstorms," her counterpart argued.
"Negative, Salik," she replied. "If we really did pick up this bug from the ice rings in the Ceti Ceti Delta System, we have to proceed there with all speed. There is a risk that other ships might pa.s.s through that system, and a risk that they might stop by the rings of the fifth planet to refuel like we did, rather than pick up hydrofuel somewhere in the Oort zone. Sentientarian s.p.a.cefaring laws require that we track down the source of the biological contaminant as quickly as possible and either eradicate it, develop and distribute a counteragent, or place Quarantine buoys around the materials in question.
"As we"re the only ship currently infected, we"re the only one worth risking a second wave of contaminants. I repeat, this contaminant is jumping species; your own race is potentially at risk. Those ice rings must be examined for the source-point as soon as possible." She paused a beat, waiting for a reply. When none came, Ia added, "At most, you waste nothing but a day or two: a few hours to get to system edge, a few hours for repairs, a few more hours to get to Ceti Ceti Delta 175 once we have full FTL capacity, and hopefully just a few hours past that to find where we picked up the fuel and discern the extent of the contaminant. You can accompany us all the way to the fifth planet, if you like."
"Hhhyew do not sssound like you are in disstress, Captain," the Salik speaker pointed out.
"That"s because I myself haven"t eaten anything since before we processed part of the ice into our drinking water. I only drink bottled water while on duty, and don"t snack. Naturally, this means I"m rather hungry, but Terran ration packets aren"t exactly known for their appetizing qualities. Of course, if you"d like to volunteer, I"d be happy to have one of you for lunch, for once."
The wheezing-whistling and smack-smack-smack of the alien"s lips that came over the ship-to-ship channel let her know that her rather morbid, disgusting joke had struck the equivalent of the Salik funny bone.
"Prosssceed to system"s edge on your heading, Hhewman. We will accompany hyew, all of our ships. If you lhhied to usss, I will personally eat your sssoft meats."
"My spleen quivers in antic.i.p.ation," Ia drawled. "Captain Ia out." Shutting off the link, Ia sighed and sagged into her seat cushions. "Well. Now we head for system"s edge, and hunt down the real source of the contaminant. Lieutenant Commander Zagrieve, pa.s.s the word through the ship for crew and cadre to rely only on bottled water and ration packs for sustenance until further notice."
"Aye, sir," the cadet now in charge of ship systems agreed.
The relief watch cadets finished cleaning up the mess left by Chen, Vizzini, and the rest, and took their posts. Ia"s right secondary screen lit up again, indicating another direct comm call. Once again, it came from lifesupport.
"This is the Captain, go," she ordered.
"This is Lieutenant Jinja-Marsuu again, Captain. After reviewing the security logs of Lieutenant Wong"s actions, both here when he was "repairing" the water pipe, and back up in the cadre galley...the evidence points very strongly to sabotage, sir. You can review it if you want, Captain." Jinja-Marsuu added, "But the evidence is there. He deliberately poisoned this crew."
"Lieutenant Broxt, call up your security teams," Ia ordered, covering her headset pickups with one hand as she addressed the new gunnery officer, who doubled as the da Gama"s security officer. "Find Lieutenant Wong and throw him in the brig. He was supposed to go to his quarters, but he could be anywhere. The charge is Fatality Thirty-Five, Sabotage."
"Sabotage, sir?" Broxt asked, eyes widening.
"Lieutenant Jinja-Marsuu in lifesupport says she has evidence. Find him," Ia stressed, "strip and zip him, and throw him in the brig bare-asteroid naked. If he resists or fights back, tell him that should a trial of his superior officers find him guilty, I will personally feed him to the Salik medical observers that are coming on board if he doesn"t surrender immediately. And do remind him, in case he has forgotten my Service record, that Marines don"t bluff. I see no reason why I shouldn"t continue that tradition, now that I"m a member of the TUPSF-Navy. Let"s hope he doesn"t resist, however."
"Understood, sir," her new gunnery officer stated. He readjusted the headset tucked around his ear, moving to comply with her orders.
Lieutenant Commander Zagrieve, scenario-senior-most of the third-watch cadets, finished relaying orders and checking over his system controls. Turning to face her, he asked, "Captain, are we really going to board Salik observers onto this ship?"
"Yes, Commander, we really are," she told him. Not that Ia thought the testers would actually go that far, but she knew they were listening and wanted them to hear the confident determination in her voice. "We are also going to do our d.a.m.nedest to get the da Gama"s starboard bow warp panels repaired, repowered, and the section secured for FTL speeds. Once we do, we are going to head straight for the fifth planet of the Ceti Ceti Delta 175 star system...which is more or less in the very same direction we"re headed right now.
"The only thing is, that same course will take us right over the top of Battle Platform Freeman, which is due to arrive at the rendezvous point around the ninth planet at Ceti Ceti Delta, which is on the near side of its system relative to us...and they will arrive about five hours before we"re due to hit the system"s edge," she stated. Her mouth quirked up on one side. "We"ll drop out early without warning our friendly little escort, and ping the Battle Platform to scramble all ships and fighters. Even if it"s undermanned due to an abrupt relocation, the defensive and offensive capabilities of a Battle Platform is easily a match for twenty warships, never mind twelve.
"Lieutenant Bruer thought the latest of our problems was a Kobayashi Maru," Ia told her fellow cadets. "Under normal circ.u.mstances, I"d have to agree with him. Had we been at full health, our choices would have been to fight and die, or be boarded, eaten, and die. But in a strange way, we owe Lieutenant Wong our lives. Unless of course, I"d been quick-witted enough to think of faking an Extreme Quarantine lockdown, and ordered the infirmary to distribute medicines capable of faking a suitable level of illness among the crew." Smirking, she patted her shirt pocket, with its two capsules of emetic medicine. "As it stands, I believe we should all remember this little maneuver for the future."
"Captain...you said Marines don"t bluff," Broxt stated warily. "Yet isn"t this a big bluff, what you"re having us do? Pretending to be sick from some sort of s.p.a.ceborne contaminant?"
"It isn"t a bluff. If any of this were true, Lieutenant, I"d carry it out in a heartbeat," Ia promised him. "Marines don"t bluff. We make promises, and we keep them. We do, however, lie to our enemies...but only when it"s absolutely necessary. Now, eyes back to your boards, gentlemeioas. We have a long way to go to finish pulling this off, and hours of constant vigilance to ensure we do pull it off-and not a word about any of this to our "observers" once they"re on board."
He nodded and returned his attention to his workstation. The ventilation system was finally getting the stench of sickness out of the air. Ia debated getting up to fetch a ration packet. Dabbling a mental toe into the nearest timestreams, she decided to refrain.
Four minutes later, the white overhead lights flashed yellow and turned green, and they heard the Eastern European Province accent of their chief tester once more.
"All hands, stand down," Captain Rzhikly announced, voice echoing through the mock starship. "Congratulazhuns, Cla.s.s 1252, you heff successfully survived your h.e.l.l Veek. Howeffer, you vill clean op each of your messes before you vill be allowed to disembark de ship."
Ia opened the shipwide comms. "Acknowledged, Captain Rzhikly. All hands, this is Acting Captain Ia. You are under orders to scrub-and-shine from stem to stern. Consider this your last task of the simulation. Captain Rzhikly, for the sake of quelling false rumors among those who were on the bridge or in the infirmary, I respectfully request that you please explain to everyone on board exactly how we ended up sick, and why."
"Reqvest granted. All hands, Cadet Wong vas asked to join de testers for a moment vhen he left de bridge at de end of de last scenario. He vas instructed by us to simulate sabotage via biological contamination. De illness you are suffering is nothing more dan a time-released liqvid emetic, very much similar to de version Acting Captain Ia ordered distributed in order to fake further illnezzes. You vill, of course, be reqvired to hand back in each and every distributed emetic pill before you vill be allowed to leave de ship," he finished. "Now attend to your cleanup detail. Captain Rzhikly out."
"You heard the Captain," Ia sighed, unbuckling her safety harness. "Let"s grab some gloves, buckets, and cleaner bottles, meioas. Don"t think for a moment the enlisted sailors will do it all for us."
"Let me guess: The best leaders lead by example, and all that rot," one of the other cadets muttered. "I just thank G.o.d we weren"t slipped a diarrhetic on top of the emetic."
Disgust warred with amus.e.m.e.nt across the bridge, finally settling into a collection of wry chuckles from most of them, Ia included. She lost her humor as she exited the bridge, erased by a stray thought.
A pity this was only a simulation. I can warn, and warn, and warn...but to some beings in this galaxy, I"m nothing more than an ancient Ca.s.sandra, whose prophetic warnings went utterly unheeded, however true they turned out to be. But I will be believed by everyone else before all of this is through. Everything depends on it.
At least the rest of my time here will be easy to endure. We don"t have that much longer before Cla.s.s 1252 graduates...and then...Right. Don"t think about any elephants just yet, Ia, she ordered herself, taking a pair of gloves from the box being pa.s.sed back to her by two cadets who had gotten into the supply closet ahead of her. You have other problems to pursue.
SEPTEMBER 1, 2493 T.S.
SOUTHEAST OF SINES, PORTUGAL, WESTERN EUROPROVINCE EARTH.
"I don"t believe you," Meyun dismissed. Head propped up on one palm, the other covering the muscles of her stomach, he shook his head slightly. "An entire planet of colonists experiences ma.s.sive, widespread, spontaneous bouts of precognition? Even the non-gifted members of sentiency?"
"It"s true. The Gatsugi, the K"katta, the Solaricans, and the Tla.s.sians have all experienced it, the same as the Humans," Ia told him, shrugging. "The Chinsoiy don"t like the electrosphere"s energies, the Dlmvla can"t tolerate the atmosphere, and the Salik have been Blockaded all this time, so we don"t have any information on them, of course."
"What about the Choya?" he asked.
She rested her head back against the pillows of their shared bed and sighed. "Of all the sentient species, the Choya-and the Salik-are truly mind-blind. Zero psychic sensitivities, and zero abilities whatsoever. I think it"s something biological, some neural wiring or protein combination they"re missing...Anyway, the few rare Choya to risk the high gravity didn"t sense a thing. Not during any visits, not that we know about. The Fire Girl Prophecies are truly the single weirdest thing about my homeworld."
"Well, how do they know these prophecies are truly prophetic?" Meyun pressed.
"When the Elders of the Church of the One True G.o.d arrived on Sanctuary, they had already designed plans for the Great Cathedral. The holopics of the mock-up matched exactly to the visions everyone was having, of a great cathedral catching on fire. Only they hadn"t shown everyone the final draft of the models before that point, just the few on the Church Council," Ia told him. "When they discovered people who didn"t even know what the cathedral would look like were having visions of it being built, and then possibly destroyed-the images aren"t entirely clear as to which will actually happen, which is the usual nature of precognition-well, they realized these were true psychic visions."
Meyun shook his head, frowning slightly. "How is it a whole planet of colonists can experience these visions? Is it something in the water? In the air? In the food? If even the tourists get it, it"s obviously not a genetic mutation."
Ia shrugged eloquently. "No one can say. And you can experience it the moment you come into the troposphere, never mind actually land on the planet, breathe the air, drink the water, or eat the food. In fact, it could even be a side effect of the planet"s electrosphere meddling with our brains. So. Your turn. What is the single weirdest thing about Dabin, in your opinion?"
"I"ll have to think about that one. My home"s not nearly as strange as yours," he demurred.
Ia nodded, letting him think. This cottage, tucked into the hills overlooking some of the villages south of Sines, was quiet, peaceful, and secluded. Perfect for a four-day tryst. It had taken her most of a day to quell the guilt over taking this time for herself, but Meyun had proven to be quite distracting when he put his mind to it.
In fact, his hand on her stomach, thumb subtly caressing her bare skin, was still quite distracting. It reminded her of all the other things his hands had done with her in the last two days, as well as other body parts. The things he had showed her...
"Pa.s.sion moss," he stated out of the blue.
"Hmm?" She looked at his face.
"Pa.s.sion moss," Meyun repeated. "It grows on the northwest continent, and comes in shades of yellow and orange and red, and even hints of purple, and the oil it secretes when it"s in bloom-if a moss-like plant could be said to bloom-enhances the fertility cycles of all the native animals around it. In fact, biologists have even been able to artificially induce fertility by coaxing the moss to bloom and ooze its oil. But only in the native animals. It doesn"t do anything for the imported livestock."
"How does it smell to nonnatives?" she asked, curious.
He wrinkled his nose. "Like oily, burnt plexi with hints of sugar. Some people like it, but most can"t stand it. There are rumors that some of the newest generations are starting to be affected by it," he added, subtly rubbing her stomach, "but it"s such a subjective thing, the scientists aren"t yet convinced it"s a planetary adaptation. It"s probably just a placebo effect."
Ia chuckled. "If they ever do adapt, your homeworld will have a major population explosion."
"Well, it"s rare for a genetic mutation to crop up so quickly, so I think it"s just psychosomatic at best, like most so-called aphrodisiacs," he dismissed. Then grinned and slid his hand upward, exploring a different part of her skin. "I suppose we"ll just have to rely on the old-fashioned methods of rousing pa.s.sion."
Smirking back at him, she slid a hand down his chest, doing some exploring of her own. Her smile turned wry, wistful. "I am going to miss you, you know. Not just this," she added, tickling his bare stomach, making him squirm and grin, "but everything else. Talking with you, laughing with you, getting to know you...and even being surprised by you. Meyun...You have no idea just how rare that is."
"Maybe I can convince you to save up some of your Leave time for me." He leaned forward and kissed the corner of her mouth. "In the meantime, let me surprise you some more...unless you can guess what"s on my mind?"
She grinned and pulled him closer. "I don"t have to be a telepath to guess that."
SEPTEMBER 3, 2493 T.S.
Bliss. Sweet, aching bliss. For the first time in a very, very long time, nothing existed for Ia but this: The moment of now. No past, no future, just right now.
Rational thought had been replaced by pure feeling. This close to him, this intimate, she could sense his every thought, his every emotion. Yet never had she felt so safe, so free. Euphoria filled her with soul-deep longing. Ohhh...if only I could stay here forever...
Meyun groaned and kissed her throat. "I don"t want you to leave."
"I don"t want to leave." The confession escaped her in a whisper, bittersweet bliss. So many possibilities hovered on the edge of her consciousness, the timeplains so close, so many potentialities almost within her grasp. No thought existed of caution, nor of control, only of wistful wishes. Such closeness bred a level of comfort and trust Ia hadn"t expected.
Clinging to him, she let the bliss carry her forward, deep into herself. Deep into him. Like her limbs, her mind entwined itself around him, cradling him in this precious moment. If only we had more Time...
A unity of thought, as much his own as hers. Shuddering, he whispered fervently, "If only we had more time together..."
Time.
Time. Word and thought, sense and psyche. They dragged her-both of them-onto the timeplains. Ruthless, remorseless Time.
Meyun gasped, eyes wide. A golden explosion of amber-hued water enveloped them, a tsunami of possibilities. Caught off guard, too closely entwined, it was all Ia could do to cling to him, to try and keep him from drowning. It didn"t work. Flailing for purchase, for understanding, for anything, Meyun dragged both of them under.
Them. That was the key word. Images flashed through the waves crashing through their senses. Scenes of him, of her. Intimate moments, public moments, laughing with friends, weeping over deaths, scenes of battle, scenes of domestic bliss. Children-the children they could have, should have, would have. Enemies-tearing them apart, carving them up, scorching the universe and stealing their last breath. Pride in accomplishments...and regret. Regret for the deaths of innocents...and the madness that surged up because of it.
Regret. That wasn"t the word for it.
Madness, death, despair, destruction. The golden light withered and turned an arid, lifeless, fiery brown. The water chilled and froze, filled with the bodies of untold lives, slaughtered and wasted. They pressed in, ice-cold and clammy, b.u.mping closer and closer in the sloshing waters of Time with inexorable horror. Their arms, their legs, their corpses pushes against the two lovers. Pushed them apart, though Meyun screamed in wordless bubbles and tried to cling to her.
The galaxy burned, the dead froze, her lover lived and died, lived and died, lived and died...all because she wanted to reshape Time for herself.
Climbing onto the banks, saving a future for her and Meyun, that would only be met by the fires of her conscience. The flames of destruction would burn away her sanity. If she stayed in the water, the ice of her duty would freeze everything else she wanted right out of her life. If she stayed immersed in the waters, she would drown from the effort of trying to push everyone else out. If she climbed onto the bank...every world would burn, and the stars would be snuffed out.
Everything would die, because she wanted things for herself.
"NO!"