The Fifth Civilization: A Novel (8 page)

A mechanic, dressed in red overalls and engrossed in a print
magazine, leaned against the bulkhead in the ship’s entry hatch. He transformed
into a sentry as soon as he saw them.

“Hey, you guys have IDs?” The guard was mostly interested in
David, toward whom he cast an indignant look.

“We’re just here to see Kel,” Roan said. The mechanic
sniffed, not amused.

“Oh yeah? Kel
who
?”

“Kel Streb,” Masao offered. “She’s supposed to be the
captain today.”

“Or the copilot,” Roan quickly offered. It was possible her
position on such a freighter was tenuous, as she’d taken the job at the last
second. Kel had the status of a captain within the Company, but if she accepted
a late trip to Orion she might be bumped to something more submissive. It was
not something she would normally take kindly to.

“Can’t decide, eh?” scoffed the mechanic. “Sounds like you
guys are full of shit.”

David stood rigid, as if assessing the situation. His
cranium feathers appeared to be twitching and trying in vain to fly away.
Masao, meanwhile, began taking an interest in the back of his
hand—hungover and bored, this wasn’t his fight. Roan saw he was going to
have to be the one to handle this on his own. “Look, we know she’s on this
ship. Just tell her we’re waiting outside. I’m her fiancé.” So he had to lie a
little…

“
You
?”

“Look, have you seen the news today? We’re the ones who were
at the mall shootout. With the Kotarans.”

“A shootout with the Kotarans? Do I look like an idiot to
you?”

Actually
…OK, so
this man wasn’t a purveyor of BV news. Hoping they’d be able to offer some
suggestions, Roan turned to his companions, but their expressions were
dead-eyed and confused. Roan decided he’d have to rush the mechanic.

“Jasper?” squawked an intercom. A woman’s voice. Roan
searched for the source and found a panel attached to wall just beyond the
threshold, on the
Colobus
itself.
Still keeping his eye on the three trespassers, the guard, evidently named
Jasper, cautiously backed up to the intercom panel and tapped a button.

“This is Jasper.”

“Is that who I think it is at the entrance?”
 
It was definitely Kel’s voice.

“Ma’am, he says he’s your fiancé.”

“Goddammit,” Kel said. Jasper narrowed his gaze, as if
assessing if Roan’s appropriateness for marriage: Too tall, too tanned? “OK,”
Kel continued, her disembodied voice sounding electronic and distorted. “I’m
going to come down there. Don’t let them on the ship yet.”
 
Jasper replied in the affirmative and
clicked off the intercom, pulling a wrench from his overalls and twirling it.
Roan knew that there were cameras pointed toward the entrance of the ship as an
extra layer of security, and that their footage could be viewed from the
cockpit. He was sure Kel had been watching them try to haggle their way in.

An awkward, silent minute passed before Kel arrived, during
which Roan endured the one-handed wrench juggling of Jasper. Unfortunately, the
physical Kel was not much of an improvement. The stress she’d shown the
previous night was now magnified by a factor of ten. Sacks bulged under her
eyes and the hair under her cap hadn’t seen a brush or comb in many hours. She
swaggered into the doorway and stood next to Jasper, crossing her arms and
mirroring the mechanic’s imposing nature.

“Well. If it isn’t the three blind mice.”

Roan didn’t respond to the comment. “Kel, we need your
help.”

“Roan, do I have to spell things out for you to get it?”

Roan nodded and looked to the floor. “You know, I liked it
better when you called me ‘Nick.’ ”

Kel cocked her head and sized up Masao. “What’s the rhythm
like in your head, Masao? A steady pounding?”

“Three times a minute, actually,” Masao responded, rubbing
his forehead. “I didn’t really have all that much fun last night.”
 
Kel gave a grunt of an affirmative in
response and then took in the Nyden in the room. Unlike most other humans, Kel
didn’t appear surprised or repulsed by the alien, but she certainly didn’t seem
impressed.

“You speak English?” she asked David.

“Me?”

“So you do. Wonderful.”
 
Then she set her sights on Roan once again, her torso moving not one
inch and her arms standing guard at her plexus. “You three are all over the BV.
How the hell did this happen to you?”

At least
she
watched the broadcasts. “I can explain, Kel, but I think it’d be better once we
got on the ship.”
 
He made a move
forward, but Jasper slapped his wrench into his palm with an audible
thwack
. It did the trick and Roan
stopped. Kel offended him with a laugh, and shook her head.

“We’re going to Orion, Roan. Not one of you is scheduled to
be on the
Colobus
. Regulations say no
outside travelers are allowed, and certainly not a Nyden.”

“Just listen to me,” Roan said, again moving forward, this
time unconsciously and into the threshold of the ship. This caused Kel to step
back and Jasper to step forward, the mechanic holding the wrench back as if he
were winding up to bullseye a dartboard. Roan again halted, then cleared his
throat in an effort to cut the tension. “Kel, you saw the news. A bunch of
Kotarans tried to kill us. Kotarans!”

“They didn’t try to kill me,” Masao put in.

“If people are trying to kill you,” Kel said, ignoring the
fat man, “Then you go to the police. A spokesman on the TV said they wanted to
talk to you, anyway.”

“Aaron Vertulfo was killed! Do you remember him, Kel?”
 
Kel averted her eyes for a second,
evidently recognizing the name. “They shot him in the back in a public mall, in
broad daylight. They were
tracking
Aaron. We go to a police station, the Kotarans will find us there. Don’t you
think they’re monitoring the police transmissions? These guys aren’t worried
about tangling with Earth authorities. That’s why I want to leave right this
second.”

David had inched closer to the threshold, too, and seeing
this in his peripheral vision, Roan grabbed the Nyden by his scaly arm and
yanked him to his side. “David here was a friend of Aaron’s, and was working
with him on a project. That project was why they killed Aaron. Now this
blue-feathered guy is presumably their prime target. Doesn’t he deserve
sanctuary?”

Jasper watched the whole conversation with quiet
fascination. His wrench had again worked his way into his overalls. Kel had
lightened up just a fraction, a curious frown joining the tired creases in her
face. “What kind of project are we talking about here?” she asked.

David stammered to explain. “It’s about the origin of life—”

“Inside!”
 
Roan
shouted. Pulling David by the arm, he started to move, but it was a false
start, as neither Kel nor Jasper budged. Kel was glowering, in fact. “Listen,
Kel, you and me are going down separate paths. Fine. I get that. But we can
find another time to start that separate path. Right now we need to stick
together. Please. My life is at stake.”

“You come aboard, then it’s
my
life at stake, too.”

The room flashed red and a klaxon blared, a constant grating
melody. As is usual in such situations, everyone gawked at the flashing alarms
like moths to a light.

“Attention!” intoned a voice over the station-wide PA. “All
personnel find a safe room and lock your doors. Unauthorized persons have
entered the Entrepot.”
 
Kel’s
expression changed once again from alarm to annoyance.

“So the Entrepot know you’re on board,” she said. “Looks
like I have no choice now.”

“It’s not us!” Masao protested, still watching the flashing
lights. “We got here legally!”

The ship intercom buzzed, a male voice calling for Kel. Roan
thought he recognized it as one of the Company’s star captains, Benji
Silverman. Kel pressed a button on the intercom.

“Harry, what is it?”

“Some dock workers say they saw Kotarans,” Silverman said.
“They came across a few dead bodies and then noticed the Kotarans entering a
loading area.
Our
loading area, Kel.
We need to get the hell out of here.”

“Shit.”
 
It was
the collective word of choice around the room, save for David, whose bulb was
blinking green, and Jasper, who went pale. There was an unspoken consensus
around the quarantine area that the single door behind them was a very good
spot for a bunch of wild aliens to come rushing in, and that the only safe
place was into the maw of the
Colobus
.

“Kel, I think now is the time we come aboard.”

“I…
fine
. Get on
board. I’m not jeopardizing anyone’s safety.”
 
She wasn’t even acknowledging them, too
busy staring at the floor and comprehending what Silverman had just told her.
Roan took the lead and charged into the
Colobus
’
hold, right past Jasper, who barely twitched his wrench in protest. David and
Masao followed, the Nyden adding a little bounce to his step.

“Close it, close it,” Kel said as they passed, and the
panicked Jasper pulled a lever by the door and the
Colobus
hatch creaked shut. Though it moved too slowly for
everyone’s comfort, no one stayed to watch and make sure it closed. As Roan
took a left turn down the corridor, he heard the reassuring
thunk
of a properly locked door.

***

“We are on board,” Roh reported via the secure channel.

Grinek had been listening patiently, strumming his claws on
the armrest. Out the viewscreen floated the double ring of the Company
Entrepot, the insertion point but not the team’s eventual destination. Situated
in berths were the tube-shaped Type-B vessels ubiquitous to the Company. One of
them was this
Colobus
.

How exciting
.

***

The hallway lights flashed amber. It was the departure signal
for the
Colobus
crew, the signal for
everyone to get to their stations. Roan dashed through the light show, rounding
corners and following the familiar corridors of the ship. A pipe system on his
left, a storage closet on the right—they built all these ships from the
same schematics. So automatic was his run and so focused on his destination
that he forgot about his two friends tailing behind and their respective
unfamiliarity and girth.

“Nick!” Masao panted. “Where the hell are you going?”

Roan didn’t stop to respond. “Cockpit! To talk to
Silverman!”

“
Silverman
?”
 
Masao knew the name. The two were not
exactly drinking buddies. “What’re you going to do, convince that slug to keep
us on board?”

“The ship’s leaving anyway, isn’t it?”
 
The staircase to the cockpit was in
front of Roan now, and he climbed its metal stairs, startling a turban-wearing
crewman coming down the other way. He muttered an apology as the crewman backed
against a wall, the toolbox in his hand clattering. From behind him, Roan heard
a gasp that meant the crewman had just noticed David.

“Roan!”
 
He
halted, and backtracked to peer down the staircase. Kel, appearing like magic,
stood at its bottom, matching his gaze. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Everyone wants to know, huh? The cockpit.”

“Not on this ship, you aren’t.”
 
Using the flexibility of yoga, honed in
secret when the practice was still banned, Kel nimbly hopped over a few steps
to the top of the staircase. Along the way, she passed David and the turbaned
crewman, who was now more perplexed at the collection of strangers than
frightened. Kel landed firmly next to Roan.

“I do the talking on this ship.”

“You’re just the copilot.”

“Regardless, let me do my thing, and you go wait in the mess
hall. You and the boys are guests until we find somewhere to drop you
off.”
 
She poked Roan in the ribs
with her index finger, less of a playful poke than a shut-up-and-do-what-I-say
poke. Straight ahead of her was the cockpit door.

“At least let me talk to Silverman.”

“You? A wanted man?”
 
There was no trace of irony in her voice, no trace of any of the
irreverence that Roan had been charmed by a few months earlier. He’d become in
her eyes a swarthy vagabond trying to bum a colonial ride. Maybe it wasn’t an
entirely unfair opinion.

Kel undid the latch on the metal cockpit door and pulled it
open, revealing the lanky Silverman sitting at the controls. Despite the name,
there was nothing silver about this man, his hair and bushy mustache radiating
a fiery red. His buck teeth, though, vaguely resembled a glinting white beacon.
Silverman flashed them in a grin when he saw Kel.

“Ah, Kel, there you are. I’m all set to get underway.
Kotarans on the Entrepot! Can you believe it?”

“Benji, I’ve got a problem,” Kel said.

“That’s me!” Roan declared, and gave a little wave. Roan had
not gone down to the mess hall but worked his way up the corridor, inching up
the corridor as Kel’s back was turned. Both pilot and copilot turned to him,
Kel rolling her eyes.

“Go wait in the mess hall!” Kel hissed, dismissing Roan with
a wave of her hand. Silverman, in a gesture that had become all too familiar as
of late, jerked his head back in confusion.

“Nick Roan?” Silverman said.

“That’s right.”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Kel opened her mouth, but Roan was out with it before she
could utter a syllable. “I’m with her.”

“Really?” Silverman gasped. “
You
?”

“It is that hard to believe?”

David and Masao had just worked their way up the steps, and
Silverman spotted them behind Roan. “Oh no, what…what the hell is this?” His
gesture, an index finger aimed down the corridor, suggested his anger was
directed at David, whose feathers ruffled in surprise. “Did you bring one of
those
on board, too?”