Dark Beneath the Moon (3 page)

“I think that’s it for now,” he said with a satisfied smile. “I’ll send along the details of when you should be on Anar, and a full briefing for Yuskeya, and the rest is up to you. And good luck,” he added with a smirk, “with those other problems you mentioned.”

“Thanks a bunch. Always nice to talk to you, little brother,” I said wryly, but I winked at him before I broke the connection.

“Well,
that
was interesting,” Yuskeya said, cradling her own mug. Hers would be filled with hot, spicy chai. “And what problems did he mean?”

“What was interesting? What problems?” Hirin asked, coming onto the bridge. He’d dressed for the day in dark cotton pants and a faded Ivan Mecha Band t-shirt he’d picked up in a thrift shop on Kiando; he disliked shipsuits as much as I did. He hadn’t brought a lot with him when he left the nursing home on Earth to rejoin me on the
Tane Ikai
for what he thought would be his last journey, so he was building a new wardrobe with bits and pieces.

The nanobioscavengers my mother had given him had continued to shave years off his appearance, so that now he resembled a hearty sixty-year-old instead of a nonagenarian. Which he was, of course. He simply no longer looked or felt like one, just as I looked about thirty, not my chronological eighty-four. He wore his salt-and-pepper hair slightly longer than military length, and his face was freshly shaved and smooth.

He strode in, hesitated slightly, then headed over to the pilot’s skimchair and sat. I knew that long habit would have taken him to the chair I occupied, had it been empty. The captain’s chair. He hadn’t said a word about it . . . yet. But it had been his chair for decades, until he’d taken ill, and now that he was better, I knew without a doubt that he must want it back. But he wouldn’t ask me, his wife of sixty years, to give it up for him. And frankly, I didn’t really want to.

In the ten years he’d been in the nursing home, I’d discovered that I liked running the ship.

That was one of the problems I hadn’t mentioned to Lanar.

“Oh, nothing much,” I said, ignoring the second of Hirin’s questions. “We’ve been drafted by the Nearspace Protectorate, that’s all, and we won’t be landing Earthside anytime soon.”

Hirin’s eyebrows shot up, and I shook my head wearily. “Let’s wake everybody up and I’ll only have to tell it once,” I said, and shuddered at the thought of everyone having to be in the same room together. The amiable crew I’d left Earth with a scant couple of months ago had turned into the surliest bunch of spacers this side of the Split, and I was still trying to figure out how to deal with them.

I only hoped they wouldn’t mutiny when I told them shore leave had been curtailed.

IF IT HADN’T
been so annoying, it might have been an interesting psychological study to observe how the crew arranged themselves in the galley for our meeting. Yuskeya and Viss, my engineer, sat as far apart as possible. They’d had some romantic interludes over the year since Yuskeya had joined the crew of the
Tane Ikai
, but since the recent revelations about their Protectorate involvement, they weren’t even speaking to each other unless it was a life-or-death situation. Fortunately, those were rare.

Baden, the communications officer, and my daughter Maja, on the other hand, were still in that new-relationship honeymoon period, and sat close together, his dark head bent to her blonde one. They were so taken up with each other I wondered if they even noticed the various palls hanging over everyone else on board. Maja and I had been—not quite estranged, but close to it, for years, and our recent reconciliation and her presence on the ship made me ridiculously happy.

Rei, my best friend and the ship’s pilot of record, didn’t even sit. She’d pulled a triple caff from the machine when she first came into the galley, and now she leaned against the counter and ignored it while it cooled, arms folded across the jacket of her dark green shipsuit, face completely neutral behind her
pridattii
. Some people thought the face tattoos worn by Erian women concealed their expressions; after knowing Rei for five years, I thought they made her face easier to read. Now they spilled a dark beauty over a face set in unyielding anger. I’d have to talk to her, and soon. This behaviour wasn’t like her at all, and it was making everyone else nervous.

Hirin sat in one of the big armchairs, studiously trying not to look like he’d rather be sitting where I was, leading the briefing. I sighed. Wrangling this crew was beginning to feel like carrying cats in a blanket. Well, maybe a little shock treatment would nudge them out of it.

“
Okej
, folks. I have bad news and bad news. Which would you like first?”

No-one laughed at my weak attempt at humour, so I carried on. “We won’t make it Earthside for a while yet. In fact we’re turned around and heading back to Mars right now on autopilot.”

Maja’s face fell a little at that, and I felt a twinge of conscience. I remembered that she and Baden had booked in at a little resort on the NorthAm east coast for a few days. Well, they’d have to reschedule.

“We’ve also been drafted into the service of the Nearspace Protectorate for a little while, so you’re all going to have to take a pay cut.”

“They can’t do that,” Viss said quietly. “Drafting of commercial vessels is prohibited except in times of war or planetary emergency.”

I grinned, but no-one else was laughing. “I know, I know. That part was a joke. But it’s true that I’ve agreed to take on a job at the request of the Protectorate. Money’s not an issue, since this is a paying job. But there is one problem.”

“Of course there is,” Rei muttered.

“If you want out, you have to decide before I tell you anything about it, because it’s one of those top-secret things the Protectorate likes to do.” I mentally bit my tongue and deliberately didn’t look at Viss or Yuskeya. Shouldn’t have poked my finger into that sore spot. “Anyway, since my brother Lanar has asked me to do it, I won’t let him down. If you don’t want to participate, I can leave you on Mars for some shore leave and collect you afterwards. You’ll get your standard leave pay.”

“Is it dangerous?” Maja asked, her voice testy. She’d been on board for a few weeks now, and although she wasn’t technically part of the crew, she’d confided in me that she’d like to learn navigation. We’d been estranged as mother and daughter for so many years that I was just happy she wanted to spend time with me again, and that we were figuring out how to be friends. Not that her prickly side didn’t surface now and again, but it was less frequent.

I shrugged. “Lanar didn’t mention any risks, and I’m sure he would have if there were obvious ones. It’s only a passenger delivery run, but it involves things the Protectorate wants to keep quiet.”

“Makes no difference to me where we go,” Viss rumbled. “I’ll stay aboard. Think I’ll clean out the plasma intakes and overhaul the Krasnikov generator if we’re planning many skips.”

I stopped myself from rolling my eyes. I found it hard to imagine there was a major system on board that Viss hadn’t already stripped down and rebuilt since we’d dropped Mother off on Kiando, but if it gave him something to do and kept him from moping around the galley then I wouldn’t complain.

“Nowhere else for me to go,” Rei said expressionlessly. “Never was that keen on Mars.”

Baden and Maja shared a glance, and Baden drawled, “I guess we’re in, too. Frankly, the curiosity would keep me on board, if nothing else. We can change our leave plans.”

Maja nodded. “But what does the Protectorate need from a far trader? They’ve got lots of passenger shuttles.”

Yuskeya had her orders from Lanar to participate in the job, so the only other one I needed to hear from was Hirin. I realized too late that I really shouldn’t have said yes to Lanar without at least checking with my husband, but when I glanced at him, he gave me a slight nod. I felt a wave of relief wash over me. At least he wasn’t angry that I’d bypassed him.

“
Okej
then, here’s the situation.” I filled them in on what Lanar had told me about the new wormhole, the artifact moon, the Chron connection, and our mission.

Baden whistled long and low. “A Chron artifact? How do they know?”

“Lanar didn’t say. But they must be pretty certain.”

“The Protectorate has a reasonably large database on the Chron,” Yuskeya offered. “It doesn’t get used much, but I guess they’d send people who were familiar with it.”

“Can’t be too large,” Viss said, his eyes on his steaming mug. “As I recall my history lessons, we couldn’t find out enough about them to help us stop them. None of us would even be here if they hadn’t disappeared on their own.”

“It’s pretty meagre, but it’s comprehensive.” The hint of defiance in Yuskeya’s voice was clear.

Hirin spoke in the awkward silence that followed. “Wonder why they think a Lobor historian will be able to help out?”

“I wondered that, too,” I said. “I guess we’ll find out when we meet her on Anar.”

“That moon must be worth a pile of credits,” Baden mused with a grin. He’d put an arm around Maja’s shoulders. “Think they’ll let us take away souvenirs?”

“Somehow I doubt it.” I yawned and stretched. “All right, everybody, it’s time for me to catch some shut-eye since I had the night duty shift. Rei, the course is laid in for Mars; wake me when we get close. Yuskeya, plot the shortest course to get us to Anar, and Baden, compile everything we have on our Lobor passenger, would you? Her name is Cerevare Brindlepaw.”

What else needed doing? “Maja, do you want to dig up anything we have about the Chron wars? We might as well be as well-informed as possible when we get there, and we have to make conversation with our Lobor guest. Viss, start whatever maintenance you want, and Hirin, you’ve got the chair. We could take cargo on Mars if there’s any going our way, if you want to check the job boards.”

I left them pulling hot drinks out of the machine and fixing breakfast, and headed to my quarters. Once I got some sleep, I promised myself, I would tackle some of the crew problems I’d been avoiding. I wasn’t taking this bunch of soreheads on any kind of a mission, least of all one where I’d have to answer to the Protectorate.

As I opened the door to my quarters, I allowed myself a smile. I was secretly excited to have this mission. Although I hadn’t said anything to anyone else—and this was the other thing I’d kept from Lanar—I’d been feeling rather . . . adrift, since we’d left my mother on Kiando. I’d spent decades searching Nearspace for her, following leads, wondering whether she was even still alive. Searching for the answers to my apparent agelessness, why Lanar and I stayed physically and mentally in our thirties while everyone else around us aged normally. It had been my driving force, my focus, for almost fifty years. Once I’d found Mother and got my answers—the nanobioscavengers she’d introduced into our bodies decades ago—I felt a bit lost. I’d regained my husband (thanks again to the bioscavs) and my daughter, but still—the direction and drive that had fueled me for so long were suddenly gone.

Yes, I was quite happy to have something new to focus on. Another lesson in being careful what you wish for.

SINCE SHE WAS
my best friend, I decided to tackle Rei first. We were still about an hour from Mars when I woke, and when I went to the bridge Hirin told me that Rei had taken a break and headed down to the cargo deck. He made as if to get up out of the captain’s chair, but I motioned for him to stay.

“Think I’ll go see if she wants to chat,” I said.

Hirin took my arm and pulled me down so he could plant a kiss on my cheek. “For luck,” he said, then chuckled. “And in case you don’t come back. Should you go in armed?”

I stuck my tongue out at him and headed for the access hatch at the rear of the ship. I didn’t see Viss as I climbed down the ladder past the engineering deck, but I heard pounding off in the distance somewhere. I shook my head. I’d have to get to him, soon, too, or he’d run out of things to overhaul. I didn’t know what might happen then.

I found Rei heavily engrossed in her workout, which I could tell before I ever got near the floor of the cargo bay. Every kick, punch, block was accompanied by a scream that I could only call
blood-curdling.
I didn’t recall the Erian martial arts involving these verbal assaults to go along with the physical ones, so they must be simply an indication of Rei’s state of mind. She’d brought her staff with her, a thick rattan pole she’d won in a bar fight on Eri—at least, that was the story that went with it. Rei had a penchant for collecting what she called “souvenirs” of her many adventures, and they could be anything from a silk kimono to a plasma rifle. Each one came with a story, as well. The staff, with its dark, carved spiral pattern, was one of many. It echoed hollowly as she lashed out and struck the cargo pod wall with it.

Her feet were bare, and she’d stripped off the jacket of her dark green shipsuit, leaving only a pale tank now stained dark with sweat. She’d rolled the legs of her pants up to her knees and tied her chestnut hair in a severe ponytail. Sweat-soaked tendrils had come loose and curled around a face that was usually filled with humour and mischief—when it wasn’t so angry.