Infinite Day (66 page)

An eyebrow flickered. “A what?”

“A kind of beer. I think.”

Luke drained his coffee and stood up with a smile. “Well, then, you'd better make sure that it doesn't make you drunk.”

Then he left, and as the door closed behind him, Vero sat staring at it, his thoughts freewheeling.

Are there dangers?
He saw his fingers interweaving.
There are dangers in all conflicts. Merral is called to fight one battle. Surely I am called to fight another
.

He considered the package that lay under his bed. Eventually, he decided he would reduce the chance of temptation. He borrowed Kappaten for a few hours and had her flick through the books and scan the pages. On the off chance he might learn something, he asked her some questions about her past and the Dominion. But on anything sensitive, her answers were evasive; Betafor appeared to have placed restrictions on what she could say. In the end he took the files she had produced and dismissed her. Vero stored the files safely away on his main data folder under multiple levels of passwords and then consigned the books to the onboard incinerator.

Yes, there probably are dangers in these things. But I have minimized them
.

The
Sacrifice
had been in the steely emptiness of Below-Space for almost a week, and color had become no more than a memory, when Isabella realized that she had reached something of a crisis point.

For some perverse reason, she had been allocated a compartment with Lola Munez, the former head of the delegate team. Lola was at least twenty years older and seemed to spend a lot of her time lying on her bed either praying or singing slow, minor-key hymns—activities which increasingly got on Isabella's nerves. But there was little point in leaving her cabin, because it seemed impossible to be on her own anywhere else.
Here we are, in the infinity of space, and I can't find anywhere to be alone.

But today Lola had gone to visit someone, and Isabella had the tiny compartment to herself. So she lay on her bed, with her hands behind her head, staring up at the ceiling.

I don't belong to the ship now. Oh yes, everyone is studiously polite to me. They make sure that I am included in all the activities. Yet I can almost touch the barrier between them and me.

She stared up at the ceiling, noticing that a gray corkscrew, rather like an animated plant root, was twisting down through the ceiling. How odd that such manifestations, which had once aroused fear, now barely generated curiosity. She forced her thoughts back to her own predicament.

So what do I do about it?

Looking at matters as carefully and objectively as she could, she realized that she had made mistakes. There seemed little doubt that Merral's description of events on Farholme was far closer to the truth than that of Lezaroth. And possibly—just possibly—she had put herself too far forward.
I made enemies.

Again the question returned.
So . . . what do I do about it?

One possibility, she decided with reluctance, was to go and apologize to Merral and admit her mistakes. She could ask for forgiveness. To take that road, she felt oddly certain, would ultimately lead to some sort of reconciliation and a healing of the relationship with him.

She considered this as a strategy.
It is not inviting. Should I admit that I might have been wrong? Can I live with the demeaning shame of having to admit that I had been driven too far by ambition? They will gloat over me!

She recoiled at the idea and found many reasons to reject it.
After all, I'm not alone in having made mistakes. Why should it be I that must do all the turning?

She recognized too that another factor had to be considered. This ship, ultimately, was not just bound for Farholme but Ancient Earth. All those who made that journey would inevitably be caught up at the very heart of the awesome events that were now unfolding and would affect every human being alive. She wanted to be involved. Of course, the dream that Lezaroth had nurtured that she might act as an intermediary between the Assembly and the Dominion was now seen as a bitter and cruel fraud.
Yet, why shouldn't I play my part? Surely I have as much right as Merral to go to Earth. I was involved at the very start of matters with the Dominion, and if it hadn't been for Merral's culpable refusal to reveal the truth to me, I might have stayed involved.

“I want to go to Earth,” she whispered aloud with a fierce intensity.

And if I seek forgiveness, that hope will be destroyed. I will have to admit that my judgment is fallible. And if I admit that, then why should they take me? All that I have achieved will be at an end.

Just then the door opened and Lola Munez entered, sat down with a weary heaviness on her bed, and began to ask how Isabella was. Isabella made some vague and noncommittal response, and then, after the minimum interval that might be considered polite, said that she needed a walk and left the compartment.

She found herself heading to the rear of the ship.
I need to be alone. I don't want to be with Lola. I am myself. I am me
.

As she walked down a stairway to the lowest level—passing around something that was awfully like a gigantic six-limbed starfish emerging from a wall—a new thought came to her. At the very heart of her world—wasn't it the very meaning of the word
assembly
?—was the idea of unity, of sharing, of cooperation. She realized that in her heart of hearts she really didn't like that.
I don't want to be always linked to other people. I want to become what
I
am supposed to be.

She had hoped that the lowest level would allow her to be on her own, but today it seemed full of people either jogging or walking.
This ship may be big, but there doesn't seem to be enough space for me to be on my own.

She had come to the end of the corridor now. There was a door before her, and on it a note was pasted. She had seen it before—who hadn't?

Aft hold is off limits. Commander Merral D'Avanos.

Below it was his signature.

“That's it, isn't it?” she said under her breath.
Even here, he has put his imprint. He has to declare his rule
.

Well, I don't care about it.
She glanced around to see that, for once, the corridor behind was empty.

With a quick, smooth movement, she opened the door and walked in. There, as the lighting came on, she checked the door to make sure she could open it again.
I know enough about spacecraft to know not to get trapped behind some one-way door.
Then she closed it behind her and gazed around.

What she saw before her was a lofty space stacked high with an assortment of large, rectangular containers that stretched up to the ceiling. They were neatly arranged so that there was a broad access avenue between them. She noticed details such as the variety of the containers, the weird Saratan labeling, and the diverse entry hatches and locks. The air here was strangely still, although she felt that the vibration from the engines seemed just a bit louder here.

There is a lot of space down here
.

She walked on, careful to avoid a writhing column of mist that looked like a tree trunk. She passed three containers and found on her right a space occupied by a large freight air lock. Past that was another large container and then a smaller structure, which appeared to be fixed to the floor, with a sliding door on the front. She stopped and, on impulse, tugged the door open and peered in to see an array of solid boxes and piles of folded fabric. The door had a lock, and she checked to see if it could be operated from the inside. Satisfied, she walked in and sat down on one of the fabric piles.

Isabella looked around. It was hardly a pleasant room—more dust than she would have liked—but it was private.
And that's what I need to put my thoughts in order.

She wiped the dust away and sat down.
Will they miss me? Hardly
. She checked her diary. The signal was still strong.
They can always call me.

She sat for some time in the quiet solitude, considering matters until she came to a decision.
The idea of admitting mistakes and asking forgiveness is utterly impossible. I will stand up for what I believe. I will put myself first. And when we get to Farholme, I will seek some sort of justice for myself
. She felt herself smile; the word
justice
had a fine ring.

Yes. I will seek justice for myself. And perhaps Merral will have to ask forgiveness of me. Personally, publicly.
That too was a fine thought.

She felt a tiny, sharp stab of guilt and a thought came to her with the clarity of a voice:
You want revenge
. She hesitated only a moment before retaliating.
It's not
revenge
I seek; only justice. I have my rights!

She began to see with a strange clarity that she didn't really like any of them. Merral—was a deeply flawed character. A courageous leader, yes—in some circumstances at least—but also reckless and headstrong.
And the General is increasingly capable of sacrificing his own people in order to pursue his own ends.
She suddenly realized she'd given Merral a nickname.
How appropriate: the
General
. It would be an interesting game to give them all nicknames.

The one person she felt she had any real sympathy with was Luke. But even there, she felt some degree of self-righteousness.
He is a Pharisee. Superficial, sanctimonious. In unthinking obedience to the past. The Pharisee.
As she thought it she knew it wasn't true, but that didn't seem to matter.

And the others? Well, there was Vero the Dataman, who seemed far more concerned with data than with human beings. Then Lloyd . . .
Ah yes. The Trainee Thug.
Anya?What shall I call her? The Biologist? No, not sharp enough. Wait . . . Anya had failed at the height of the fighting. She had run away; they all knew that. Got it! Not just the biologist but the Invertebrate Biologist.
The biologist without a backbone.

She felt another sharp stab of guilt and another accusatory thought.
You hate them now
.

Isabella considered the accusation for a few moments.
It's a survival strategy. I either despair and sink into self-pity, or I hate
.
I choose the latter
. Slightly unnerved by her own thoughts, Isabella decided it was time to go.
No point in being discovered; I want to be able to return here.

She stood up and walked out of the structure, sliding the door closed behind her. In the middle of the hold, she stood and stretched her arms. It was good to have made a decision. She looked down the avenue to the aft of the ship, seeing the containers extending onward for at least another fifty meters.

At some point, I will explore further down here.

She was about to turn to leave when, from down the avenue, she heard a muffled noise. It sounded like a sequence of many closely spaced taps.

Like a pack of disciplined rats.

She shrugged.
It's Below-Space. It's not just full of strange sights but also strange noises
.

Then she walked back out to join the others.

Betafor had seen Isabella's foray into the aft hold and had been alarmed by it. However, she found herself vexed over what to do. She considered alerting Merral or Laura, but she wanted the aft hold to be forgotten, not the subject of inquiry. So she said nothing to any of the humans but heightened her own surveillance of the area through the limited camera and audio links available.

Over the next few days, Betafor recorded further journeys by Isabella into the aft hold but increasingly found them reassuring. The woman seemed to visit only the structure labeled as Edifice R19—some distance from Container S16—and go no further. Betafor felt that her activity fitted into the well-known (if incomprehensible) category of need-resolving actions among humans called “seeking privacy.” Why humans wanted at some times to be social and at others to be private was utterly beyond analysis; it appeared to be almost random. The result of Betafor's analysis was to decide that Isabella's explorations were at an end.
She has found what she wants; she is unlikely to stray beyond this point
.