The Stars Blue Yonder (8 page)

“Fraternization, too,” said Lieutenant Holt, sitting on the stool at Jodenny's elbow. “Breaking ranks for love. That's our girl.”

Another word or two and she was going to poke both of them in the eye. Dyanne rescued her before that could happen by taking her elbow and steering her toward a set of faux-leather chairs in the corner.

In just a few minutes the hour would strike and they'd have to sit for dinner, but for now they had a moment of privacy.

“What are you doing here?” Dyanne asked.

Jodenny lifted her beer stein. “Getting sloshed.”

“Your future husband is sitting in a cabin with your future grandchildren, and you're here? Aren't you at all curious?”

“It's a hoax!” Jodenny insisted. “Or another prank.”

Dyanne gave her an impatient look. “A joke perpetuated by the Security Officer known so much for her sense of humor? By the doctors, who have nothing to do but yank your chain? Listen to yourself.”

“No, you listen to yourself. There is no such thing as time travel. You were in the same academy physics classes I was. It's impossible.”

“Impossible just means they haven't figured it out yet. What's really impossible is why you're here when you should be there. Don't you think they're scared? Don't you think they need you?”

Jodenny drank more beer and let her gaze roam over the familiar faces of her fellow officers as they chatted and joked. These men and women aboard the
Yangtze
were her true family. She didn't need any more than that. Didn't want it.

“I'll see them tomorrow,” she told Dyanne.

“How do you know they'll even be here?”

Alarm spiked through her. “Why wouldn't they be?”

“Hello? Time travelers? Seems to me that if they can show up anytime they want, they could leave anytime as well.”

The wardroom bell rang. People started toward their chairs at the long, formal table. Jodenny gazed at the bottom of her beer and then at Dyanne's earnest, eager face.

“If it were me,” Dyanne said, “I'd go to him.”

Jodenny replied, “I'm not you.”

Dinner was excruciating.

The last thing Myell wanted was to share a meal with Osherman sitting across the table looking so young and vibrant while he himself felt scuffed and worn down, like the bottom of a boot. He'd almost retreated to his cabin, but he wasn't going to just stand by while this version of Sam Osherman made nice with the kids and tried to worm
whatever information he could get out of them. Besides which, Myell was starving for a good hot meal.

The food sent up by the galley was tasty enough, and he shoveled into the ravioli and mushrooms and green beans while Twig and Kyle told stories about the future.

“—and so the ship gets thrown all this way across the galaxy and we're all stranded there, but this was before we were born,” Twig said, summarizing the salient history of the
Kamchatka
.

Osherman nodded intently. “Because a snake came out of the sky, is that it?”

“Nobody really believes that,” Kyle said, speaking for his generation. “It was the Roon.”

“Oh, yes, the aliens,” Osherman said, flicking his gaze toward Myell. “Who invaded Earth. Or will invade Earth, just a few years down the road.”

Myell glared at the kids. He specifically remembered telling them not to talk about that.

“
Tried
to,” Twig stressed. “When Grandpa here was killed on Burringurrah. But now he's back.”

Myell deliberately reached for another dinner roll. Sure, he'd died on Burringurrah, but he still didn't know how exactly, or even why. He didn't feel dead. “Why don't you tell the commander about your schoolwork?”

Osherman refused to be sidetracked. “How is it you die, exactly, Sergeant?”

“Tragic spaceship accident,” Myell said. “Flattened by a birdie.”

He didn't mean to sound so flippant—or maybe he did. Because he'd been answering questions all day now, hundreds of them, for Osherman or Delaney or the men from the Data Department, and he was damned tired of it. He regretted being sarcastic and cruel to Jodenny but she'd come to him with more questions, always more questions, and none of them mattered because the answers would evaporate as soon as the ouroboros came to take them away.

He only hoped the Flying Doctor didn't show up instead.

“Flattened by a birdie,” Osherman said. “That's a unique way to go, Sergeant.”

“It doesn't matter how I die,” he said flatly. “We all do, sooner or later. On this ship or the next ship or on Earth or on the other side of the galaxy, and there's nothing I can do to change it. What happens will happen. And people will die screaming, and the world will be smoke and ash, and what's the use, if it's already written in stone?”

The three of them stared at him as if he'd lost his mind.

He pushed away the plate and stood up. His feet carried him toward the hatch before he even knew he wanted to leave the suite. RT Hadley from Security held up a hand and said, “You're not authorized to go anywhere, Sergeant,” and Myell almost punched him.

“Let me out,” he told Hadley.

“I can't without authorization, Sarge.”

“Out of my way,” Myell warned. Because as friendly and helpful as Hadley had been, he was the one obstacle Myell could do something about.

The hatch opened and was blocked by Jodenny, who was wearing her dinner uniform. She looked surprised to see Myell standing there.

“What's going on?” she asked.

Osherman rose from the table. “Lieutenant Scott, you're just in time. Will you keep the children company? The sergeant and I were about to take a walk.”

Jodenny looked uncertain. “A walk?”

Hadley said, “I'm not supposed to let him out, sir.”

“It's all right. I'll authorize it. Commander Delaney won't mind.”

Hadley started to object again, but Osherman was already steering Myell into the passageway.

Myell shrugged off the guiding hand and headed for the nearest ladder. The rungs were cool and sturdy under his fingers. He climbed down with no destination in mind. The galley on D-deck was busy with crowds, and he ducked away. The gym on E-deck was also teeming with sailors. Wasn't there any place on the entire damned ship where a man could be alone in his thoughts, and breathe without sucking in someone else's body odor, sweat, fear? He pushed open a hatch and stepped into the ship's library, which was a curved dark room with individual reading booths. A vidded expanse of stars stretched from the carpeted deck to domed overhead.

“What's wrong, Sergeant?” Osherman asked, following him inside.

“Chief,” he corrected. “Or maybe not. It doesn't matter, does it?”

“Why don't you come sit down for a moment?”

“I'm not having a nervous breakdown,” Myell said, though maybe he was. He paced toward the shelves and then away again, his hands fisted. Fight or flight. He told himself there was no reason to panic but reason couldn't belt back the hammering of his heart or the tightness in his lungs. “I'm not claustrophobic.”

Osherman sat on a padded chair. “Wouldn't matter. There's nothing wrong with a healthy fear of enclosed spaces.”

“You're just saying that.”

“Let's just say I never plan to go spelunking. God's honest truth.”

Myell scrubbed the side of his head. He needed a haircut. He needed a lot of things. He felt like he was going to vomit up those mushroom raviolis. “You lie all the time.”

“Part of my job,” Osherman said.

Myell pressed his face against the vid screen, glad for the coolness. He closed his eyes. “You won't remember any of this. The next time we meet, you'll have to be convinced all over again. All of you, convinced.”

“Sounds wearisome.”

“You have no idea.”

“Well, then,” Osherman said. “I know an excellent remedy. How about a beer or two?”

Myell opened his eyes. “Christ, yes.”

“Come on. I know just the place.”

“It's bedtime,” Jodenny announced.

Kyle said, “I don't want to.”

Twig added, “We should wait up for them.”

“Bed,” Jodenny insisted. The two of them had dark circles under their eyes and had been yawning steadily for the last half hour. “Wash up, brush your teeth, and look in the closet for something to sleep in.”

Kyle said, “You're bossy, just like she is.”

“Bed,” Jodenny repeated.

The kids' room had two single beds in it. Once cleaned up and
changed into pajamas, Kyle jumped onto his mattress and began punching his pillow into submission. Twig wanted someone to tuck her in. Jodenny pulled back the covers, helped her get settled, and adjusted the blankets and sheets accordingly. She almost smoothed Twig's bangs back from her eyes, but settled instead for fluffing the pillow.

Twig yawned and said, “I want my mom. She's going to be worried.”

“I'm sure she is,” Jodenny said.

“You didn't have a mom.”

Jodenny blinked. “Of course I did. She and my father died when I was very little.”

From the other bed Kyle said, “You never talk about it. Where you grew up, or how.”

“I don't?”

“You don't talk about much,” Kyle replied. “You say the past is the past, and there's no use rehashing it.”

Jodenny said, “Sometimes that's true.”

She went back to the living area and tried to imagine herself at age seventy. The picture wouldn't come. After a few minutes of sitting on the comfortable sofa, she felt herself nodding off and curled around a large cushion. Her nap went undisturbed until Osherman and Myell stumbled in just before midnight.

Osherman burped loudly. “Sorry to wake you.”

“Where have you two been?” she demanded.

“At the Pub with No Beer,” Myell said, naming one of the crew pubs on F-deck.

They reeked of whiskey, and had the glassy-eyed stares of men on close terms with the bottoms of drinking glasses. Though she wasn't sure they'd used glasses and not just swigged out of the bottle. Osherman was walking especially stiffly, careful with every small movement. Myell was boneless and sloppy as he flopped down on the sofa beside her.

“We've been talking about you.” He rested his head on a cushion and gave her a puppy-dog look. “But nothing bad.”

Jodenny rose swiftly. “I'm so glad you had fun. I'm leaving now.”

“Don't you want to know?” Myell asked.

Osherman, who was standing with one hand pressed to the bulkhead, said, “I'm going to break your heart, and then he's going to die on you, and then we're going to get married and have a daughter, and then our son's going to die. But we want to apologize.”

“For the inconvenience,” Myell added.

“You're both idiots,” she said, and headed for the hatch.

“Jo, wait.” Osherman caught her by the arm. “Say goodbye. He's going to be leaving soon.”

Myell nodded earnestly, then burped.

“Leaving? Where's he going?”

“Blue ring,” Myell said. “Very pretty. Comes to take me away. So I can save mankind.”

He sounded earnest enough. For a lunatic.

“When is the blue ring coming?” Osherman asked.

Myell waved a hand. “Tomorrow. Say, noon? Noon would be good. I need to sleep in a little. Homer, make it so!”

Jodenny asked, “Who's Homer?”

Osherman shook his head.

She leaned closer. “Can you make it stop, Sergeant?”

“Nope.” Myell slid sideways and burrowed into the sofa cushion. His eyes were sliding shut. “Don't know how.”

“It's a very peculiar thing, this time travel,” Osherman said.

Peering closely at him, she realized he was far less drunk than he appeared. Jodenny glanced back at Myell, who was snoring loudly. She said, “You got him drunk on purpose.”

Osherman shrugged. “Got him to talk more.”

“Anything worthwhile?”

“He loves you,” Osherman replied. “Or he did, once. Before you started rejecting him at every turn.”

“I've never even met him,” Jodenny retorted.

“Do you remember Richi Miller's party? The Ithaca Café?”

The Ithaca Café on Porter Street had been a favorite of academy students for generations. Strong coffee, breakfast available at every hour, and when Jodenny had liberty there was always a friendly face or two to be found in the large vinyl booths. Richi was a bright guy, funny and stubborn, not the military type at all. His father the general had pressured
him into joining. For his birthday during their last year there had just been four or five of them from political science class, a few rounds of beer, a lot of peanuts and chips.

The most memorable part of the evening was when she and Richi slipped out to the alley for some kissing and groping, and returned flushed and smiling to their friends. If Myell was a time traveler, dropping in and out of her life without consequences, he could have been there at the party. Could have seen her with her hand cupping Richi Miller's firm backside, seen his hand fondling her breasts.

“This is all ridiculous,” Jodenny said.

“If you don't believe him, why are you sticking around?” Osherman asked.

She glanced at the sofa but didn't answer.

“This blue ring of his,” Osherman said. “He says it takes him around places, through space and time. He's trying to find something called Kultana. We looked it up while we were down in the pub. It's a male god from Aboriginal Australia, or sometimes a female god. From the Land of the Dead, or sometimes in charge of the rain. There's also a Kultana orchid, a village in India back on Earth, a Kultana museum on Mary River, and at least a dozen other possibilities. He says he knew all that, and none of them seem to fit the bill.”

“So what's next?”

“If that ring shows up tomorrow, I intend to be here. Along with scientists and security guards and anyone else who might help us catch it.”