Balance of Terror (29 page)

With a small movement, Needann directed a crewmember to do the checking, then she pressed the panel and the curved hatch slid shut with a hiss. Without saying another word, she headed for the front of the ship. Moon followed.

The cockpit was small, barely enough to comfortably fit two people, its walls crammed with screens. Some views showed the cave behind them, while others were black. With Needann’s tall figure also occupying the space, the door didn’t have enough clearance to close behind the pair of pilots. Adding to the crowd, Moon leant against the other side of the doorway, intently watching the action in front of her.

“Start extraction,” Needann said calmly.

With a nod, one of the pilots readied the ship’s thrusters. Moon felt the engine’s vibrations rumble beneath her feet, a slow thrumming before the full ignition phase kicked in.

Needann looked down at her bangle. “We are secure. You may proceed.”

The other pilot blasted a hole in the black wall in front of them. Moon saw debris spinning away against the background of a starfield, exposing the hidden pod that held Needann’s ship, now open to hard vacuum. The thrumming surged to a teeth-chattering roar and they shot into space as if catapulted by a giant machine.

“Minslok and Flerovs made it to the
Unfinished Tale
,” Needann told her, as their small vessel arced away to the right, “but there will be no more communication between us until we have rendezvoused at the fallback position.”

“And how long will that be?” Moon asked.

“Approximately two standard weeks.”

“Two
weeks
!”

Needann looked over at her calmly. “We need to be safe.”

“But two
weeks
,” Moon said again, more softly this time.

“You have led a sheltered life, Thadin.” Needann turned back to the two pilots. “Continue to the rendezvous point.”

With their backs to her, the two nodded their heads.

Disappointed, Moon spun away from the doorway and the cockpit. Not only was she away from Srin for longer than she had ever been away from him before, but she was stuck in a small ship with Needann…for two weeks! To her consternation, Needann also turned and walked with her.

“Dokan has caused much trouble,” she said.

Moon didn’t want to answer. She felt at an
impasse
, no clear way either forwards or backwards. What was she going to do now? But innate politeness kicked in and she found herself asking, “Did his betrayal do much damage to your network?”

Needann stared at her for a long moment. “Yes. Even by doing nothing he has forced us to do something. Rebuild. It costs time and resources but we have no choice.”

Will you forgive him again, Moon wanted to ask. Will you show to a relative what you seem incapable of extending to a suffering human? She wanted to ask those questions, but she couldn’t. There was no emotion in Needann’s voice but, from the dullness in those uniquely-patterned green eyes, Moon got the impression that Dokan’s betrayal had hurt the alien.

They reached the stern of the shuttle. Before them was a locked door leading to the, probably also very cramped, Engineering section. There was a small circular transport pad to their left.

“Come,” Needann told her, gesturing her to the pad.

Because of the pad’s dimensions, Moon was forced to stand very close to the other woman. She felt uncomfortable but there was nothing she could do about it. She was also struck by Needann’s height. At a distance, the alien didn’t appear to be too tall but, being pressed together, close enough to embrace, Moon realised that the top of her head barely came to the height of the rebel’s chest. Again, the thought occurred to her that there was something not right about Needann’s physiology, something missing.

The pad rose to the shuttle’s upper level and Needann stepped off.

“These are where the sleeping pods are situated,” she told Moon. “Because of the alarm,
Grey Vapour
has taken on more than its usual complement. I have told the captain that you and I will be sharing quarters.”

She strode ahead before Moon had time to react to the statement. Trailing Needann, she watched as the alien opened the door of a cabin almost at the front of the
Grey Vapour
and entered. Moon followed.

It wasn’t that bad. The cabin was compact but well-designed. A small sofa had been turned into a makeshift bed by flattening out the armrests. It was still shorter in length than the bed that lined the opposite wall, so Moon figured that would be where she’d be sleeping. Under one of the adjusted armrests, she saw the edge of her satchel and mentally breathed a sigh of relief. There was no other door leading out of the room, so she assumed that the bathroom arrangement was a communal one. Oh well, she had got used to that at the Republic detention facility and, for two weeks, she could get used to it again.

“What do you do for recreation?” Needann asked.

Moon turned to stare at her.

“This is a two-week trip,” Needann explained. “Time will go slowly without any diversions.”

“What diversions
are
there on this ship?”

“The library is very good and non-intensive net trawls will keep us up-to-date on the latest news. In terms of games, I have grown very fond of one that, Minslok tells me, is a variation of the Earth game of ‘go’. Do you play it?”

Moon shrugged. “Occasionally, but not for more than a year now.”

“Then I shall be happy to defeat you.”

Needann’s expression hadn’t changed, but Moon got the distinct impression that the woman was laughing at her.

Moon didn’t realise how tired she was until she fell into bed that night, ship-time. She had thought she’d be fretting over Srin but was comforted by the fact that he had Kad around. If the man could evade a full lock-down at a government-owned science institute, he could help steer the
Unfinished Tale
– and Srin – to the still unspecified rendezvous point.

That night, with her body demanding rest after the stress and excitement of the previous twenty-four hours, Moon slept the sleep of the dead. She woke the next morning feeling refreshed and a little more resigned to the entire situation. Needann must have been a quiet and light sleeper because Moon didn’t know when the woman had entered the cabin to sleep, and she was already gone by the time Moon opened her eyes. As she levered herself up in bed, Moon thought that a quick clean would do wonders for her morale. With a yawn, she dragged her satchel out from under the sofa/bed, frowning slightly at the unaccustomed weight. A tendril of alarm curled in her belly as she hefted the rucksack onto the bed.

There was something subtly
different
about it. Moon stared at the shapeless mass for a moment then, with trembling fingers, she undid the clasps and flung back the flap. Her eyes widened at the same time as her knees turned to jelly and she collapsed on the floor.

This wasn’t her baggage. It was
Srin’s
!

“I can’t see the issue.”

For what appeared to be the twelfth time, Moon ran a shaky hand through her hair. She and Needann were in a small pod of the
Grey Vapou
r that served as meeting room, canteen and, noting with a distracted glance a collapsible set of panels built into a wall, emergency infirmary. Her yell of anguish at discovering the rucksack switch had brought a crewmember running, followed quickly by Needann, who had summarily directed that a limp and legless Moon be helped to the pod. After a few moments, a glass of cold water had been thrust into her hands and Moon drank the liquid desperately, as if dying of thirst.

“We’ve got to go back,” she rasped.

“Go back? Where?” Needann watched her with an air of calm that Moon found infuriating.

“To Excalibur. No no, to the
Unfinished Tale
. We must find the
Unfinished Tale
.”

“There is nothing left for us at Excalibur, except for discovery and imprisonment. And I don’t know where the
Unfinished Tale
is.”

Moon jumped to her feet and began pacing the cramped space. “You
must
know. We
must
get in touch with them.”

“I can’t see the issue,” Needann said.

“It’s the rucksack! The luggage that was brought on board.”

“Your luggage.”

“Yes-no, it’s not mine. You brought
Srin
’s luggage on the ship.”

Needann remained silent, watching Moon’s frantic steps with an unfathomable gaze.

Moon took a few deep breaths. She wouldn’t achieve anything if she became hysterical and she needed Needann to understand the situation as clearly, and as quickly, as possible.

“You told me that my partner – as you call Srin – is not well,” she began, as calmly as she could.

“I did.”

“That’s true. He has several types of medication to keep him alive. They help control his very high fever and stop the convulsions that are a side-effect of the drugs he was on for twenty years.”

“Yes.”

Moon shook her head. “Well,
I
have those drugs. Somehow, in the confusion over the alarm, I got Srin’s bag…and he must have got mine.”

“Does your bag contain any of his medication?”

“No.” Moon collapsed onto the chair. “Back on Marentim, we thought it best if Srin held on to everything. You see, we were ordered into separate vehicles by a trader we were travelling with. We didn’t know what was going to happen, whether we would get separated or not. So I gave Srin all the drugs in case Gauder came up with some twisted plan and the both of them hared off to a casino together for a week.”

Moon closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead with tense fingers. “Look, I know I’m not making much sense but, for whatever reason, all the medication that Srin needs is now in the satchel I have. And Srin obviously has my bag.”

“And your bag doesn’t have any medication?”

“Maybe it has one or two days’ supply that I may have overlooked when transferring it across to his bag, but certainly not two
weeks
’!”

Moon came to a lightning-fast conclusion. She lifted her head and met Needann’s gaze unwaveringly.

“You’ve got to help me find Srin,” she pleaded, her voice raw. “He is the only person capable of helping me reconstruct SolMil. If he dies, all my research dies with him.”

Chapter Twenty-three

“It’s Moon’s bag.”

Srin stared at Kad across the low table. Between them, a rucksack sat, emptied of all its contents.

“And all your medication was in
your
bag?” Kad asked.

Srin nodded, causing the other man to sigh deeply and look away for a moment.

“What made you do that?” he finally demanded. “Didn’t either of you think of contingency planning? Didn’t
Moon
think of redundancy?” Kad shook his head. “I swear, when I see that woman next—”

“That
had
been our plan,” Srin interrupted. “Till we met Gauder. And he found out how fast my brain works.”

Kad frowned. “Moon didn’t mention any of this. And all I got from Gauder was a set of cryptic sentences that made me wonder if he’d gone temporarily insane.”

“I think she thought he was a colleague of yours, so she didn’t want to say anything controversial. Besides, we managed to get to 3 Enkil IV, so….” Srin shrugged.

“What did Gauder do?” Kad bit out, his eyes blazing.

Briefly, Srin related his and Moon’s experiences on Marentim and their fear that Gauder might take Srin on an extended casino-hopping trip.

“Because we didn’t know how long a jaunt like that might last, Moon thought it feasible – for the time being – to let me hold all of the medicine. We never intended that to be a long-term solution, but things moved quickly after we found a way to get off Marentim.”

“Moon was strangely reticent about that as well,” Kad mused. He didn’t look happy.

Srin laughed. “She can hold secrets when she wants to. We…fell in with a small group of…,” Srin paused, not sure how to describe Quinten Tamlan and his crew.

“Pirates?” Kad supplied.