A King of Infinite Space Read online

  Long, dark silence in the command center. Rohr wipes his hand across his face; tiny beads of sweat, dully reflecting the glow of the instrument panels, scatter from his brow. Jeri’s lips are tight; she stares at the cartwheeling spaceship only ten kilometers away.

  “What do you intend to do, Captain Osako?” she asks.

  We hear nothing for a minute or so. Rohr switches back to the other channel; he listens for a moment, then switches off. “Ernsting’s found a way to override the lockout,” he says quietly. “He’s launching the lifeboat and demanding that we take him and his party abroad.”

  Jeri nods. I follow her gaze to the windows. A tiny lozenge has broken free from the liner’s midsection; tiny lights spark as its maneuvering thrusters flare.

  “Captain Osako,” she asks again, “Ernsting has launched the lifeboat. What do you intend to do?”

  After another few moments, a resigned voice comes over the comlink: “The only responsible left thing to do, Captain. Please, remove your ship to a safe distance. Do not pick up the lifeboat, I beg of you.”

  “What are you doing?” Jeri demands.

  “Mister Ernsting was telling the truth. About the reactor, I mean.”

  Jeri thinks about this for a second. Then her eyes widen. She clamps a hand over her headset mike. “Everybody, grab something! Brain, emergency ignition, full thrust! Get us out of here!”

  I barely have time to snatch the ceiling rail with both hands before Comet’s main engines fire.

  My legs swing upward as the rail trembles within my palms. Rohr and Jeri are shoved back into their seats as the freighter groans around us. Things drop to the deck and rattle around with the sudden surge of gravity; I know there’s going to be a mess to clean up belowdecks, but right now I don’t care.

  “Jeri!” Rohr shouts. “Is he…?”

  “Hang on!”

  The Goh Ryu-maru disappears from the windows. On a screen, we see it tumbling away behind us, left behind like a damned soul lost in an infinite ocean.

  “I’m receiving from the lifeboat!” Rohr still has one hand on his headset. “They’re demanding that we pick them up!”

  Jeri says nothing. The Comet hurtles through space, escaping as fast as its nuclear engines will permit. On the screen, the liner is a tiny pinwheel receding behind us, fading back into the darkness.

  Then, one last time, we hear the calm voice of Captain Osako:

  “My family home is on Kyushu Island, in the Kagoshima Prefecture. We come from an ancient samurai clan. Please, as a request from one captain to another, inform them what happened here. Tell them that I’ve attempted to die with honor.”

  And then a tiny nova explodes behind us.

  When the hull has ceased trembling, when our retinas have forgotten the violent glare, when the comlink is silent once again and Rohr has made sure that the Comet hasn’t suffered any damage, I leave the bridge. I flounder through the carousel and make my way to the wardroom.

  The compartment’s wrecked. Everything that was on the table or counters when Jeri and I were here just a little while ago is now all over the floor or splattered across the bulkheads. Yet I’ve been making sure that everything stowed in the galley lockers is safely strapped down; although a few cans of this and that have fallen out, a bottle of cheap whisky from the Moon is another of the survivors.

  I’ve never been much of a drinker—having an alcoholic mother will do that to you—but now looks like a good time to start. I pour a couple of fingers of whisky into an unbroken coffee mug, and do my best to put it in my stomach in one hard swallow.

  Stupid idea. I’m still puking into the sink when Rohr comes in. He picks me up and settles me down on the floor amid the debris. I take deep breaths and wipe vomit away from my lips while he runs a little water onto a folded towel and wraps it around my forehead. Then he picks a chair up from the floor, sits down in it, and stares at the whisky bottle.

  Neither of us says anything for a few minutes. He’s the first one to talk.

  “The lifeboat got away,” he says.

  The rag is cold against my forehead. “You’re not picking it up?”

  “No, we’re not.”

  “Wanna…” An acid taste in my throat makes me cough; I hack into my hand and wipe my palm on my trousers. “Want to tell me why not?”

  “Yeah, I could.” He picks up the whisky bottle. “Did you drink this before you threw up or after? I don’t want to…”

  “Used a cup.”

  “Good.” Still, he doesn’t imbibe from the bottle; he just runs a thumb across its engraved label. “This is really lousy stuff, y’know. I don’t know why I keep it aboard. If you’re going to get drunk, you ought to get the wine I’ve got stashed above the—”

  “Why didn’t you pick up the lifeboat?”

  He takes a deep breath, slowly lets it out. “There’re four people in that pod, and they’ve all contracted the plague. If we bring them aboard the Comet, within a zulu day we’d all have the same thing. Titan Plague’s a bitch. It travels by air, and it can survive for months in a closed environment, feeding on the oxygen cells of a corpse. That’s what killed the rescue team to Titan twenty years ago, when they went to find out what happened to the first expedition. No cure…just slow death while the plague eats your brain and drives you insane.”

  “You know this for sure?” I knew about the plague, of course, just couldn’t believe it until now. The difference between education and experience.

  “I know this for sure, yeah.” He stares at the bottle. “Believe me, I know. That’s how we lost McKinnon, our first captain.”

  Until now, this has been a subject he and Jeri have avoided. “Wanna tell me about it?”

  “Nope.” After a moment, he picks up the bottle, wipes off the mouth, and takes a wicked slug. He hisses as the liquor slides down his throat. “Jeri’s sending Class A-One messages to the Alliance and the Pax, telling them what happened and asking them to inform all ships not to pick up the lifeboat. With any luck, an Alliance cruiser will find it and send it a torpedo. If we’re not lucky…”

  He shakes his head. “Well, some stupid prospector recovers it as salvage, pops the hatch, and the whole thing starts over again on another ship. All because a chief petty officer turned coward.”

  Rohr takes another hit from the bottle, then cradles it in his lap and settles back in the chair and puts his feet up on the table. “Today,” he says, “you just saw the death of the bravest man in the system. Osako, that sonnuva…no, I’m sorry, you shouldn’t say things like that, not about the dead…Captain Osako, bless his soul, did the bravest thing I’ve ever seen any man do. We could have rescued him, but he told us not to. Instead, he told us to stay clear, run for it. Then he primed his main engine to nuke, so that no one would attempt to salvage his ship and spread the plague. And then, even then, after we arrived on the scene…”

  “He told you not to pick up survivors.”

  “That’s a fact. That’s a fact.” Rohr lets his head fall back. “Oh, God, that’s a fact.”

  Long silence.

  He raises his head again; his eyes have gone wet around the rims. He extends the bottle to me. “Here. To him…one last toast. To Masamichi Osako, captain of the Goh Ryu-maru.”

  I don’t want to drink, but there’s no question that I have to. I take the bottle from Rohr, raise it to my lips. “To Captain Osako,” I say.

  This time, the liquor doesn’t revolt me.

  “Never forget this,” Rohr says softly as he takes the bottle from my hand. “Never forget.”

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  * * *

  SUPERUNKNOWN

  What was I in the last century? I only find myself today.

  No more wanderers, no more vague wars. The inferior race

  has spread everywhere—the people, as they say;

  reason, rationality, science.

  —Arthur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell

  And now it’s October 9. The TBSA Comet ha
s been traveling backward for the last two weeks, its main engine constantly firing as it gradually decelerates from its long plummet toward the Sun, but today Jeri has given the order for the turnaround maneuver. Stars swim past the cockpit windows as the freighter somersaults on its major axis…and suddenly, I catch sight of home.

  I’ve sometimes wondered whether this has been a long dream. There’ve been many times, lying awake in my bunk, when I’ve idly speculated whether this is reality, or just a particularly vivid delusion. The car crash was the last thing I remembered before darkness; maybe I’m in a coma, and all this time I’ve really been in a bed in the intensive care ward at Barnes Hospital with needles in my arms and a rubber tube in my nose. Any minute now, I’ll come out of my fugue; it’ll be 1995 once again, and this spaceship will dissolve like so much dreamstuff.

  Now, grasping a ceiling rail in the bridge behind Rohr and Jeri, I realize once and for all that this is no illusion, for there, one million miles away, a blue-green marble floats in the pitch blackness of space.

  Earth.

  It’s something I’ve seen countless times. Textbook photos, magazine covers, science fiction movies, postage stamps, MTV videos: the Earth-in-space image is all too familiar. If you were born after Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon, it’s something you take for granted. It’s a different thing, though, when you see it with your own two eyes. In this single instant, I know that this can’t be something my brain has conjured up.

  “Oh, my God,” I whisper. “Oh, my God…there it is.”

  Rohr’s busy guiding the Comet toward its rendezvous with Highgate, but Jeri hears me. “How does it look?” she asks, glancing over her shoulder to give me a smile.

  It’s difficult to answer; my throat is tight. “Beautiful,” I finally manage to croak. “It’s really…shit, it’s beautiful.”

  “Take a good look,” Rohr murmurs. “This is as close as you’re going to get.” He has a headset over his ears; he taps the mike with a finger. “Highgate Traffic, this is Mexico Alpha Foxtrot one-six-seven-five, TBSA Comet, requesting clearance for primary approach on grid two-zero, do you copy?”

  Jeri returns her attention to her console. “Brain, lock onto Highgate beacon and target a rendezvous trajectory on my mark.”

  “Roger that, Highgate Traffic, thank you.” Rohr’s fingers tap the keypad in front of him; a flatscreen displays an elliptical funnel receding toward a distant point. “Entry point at X-ray two-six-two, Yankee minus six-zero-two, Zulu zero-zero-niner…”

  “Brain, mark rendezvous trajectory. Stand by to receive coordinates for final approach and parking orbit.”

  Earth is already disappearing through the windows; the Moon glides into view. Sunlight casts long shadows from mountain ranges and large craters; it looks so different from the Moon I’ve seen from Earth that I barely recognize it, until I realize that this is the lunar farside. I grin and laugh out loud. Only a handful of astronauts have witnessed this view, and…

  Something cold slides into my stomach. Neil, Buzz, Mike, all those other NASA guys; even Tom Hanks, who played an astronaut in a movie I caught just a couple of weeks before I bought it. Long gone, each and every one; I’ve outlived them all.

  Highgate is a luminescent helix suspended in front of the Moon, a spiderweb of spars and spheres. Spaceships circle it like fireflies in the darkness, their engines occasionally flaring as they move into parking orbits, moonlight reflecting off their hulls. Smaller spacecraft move between them like gnats, ferrying crewmembers and passengers to and from larger ships berthed in open-sided cradles: freighters, yachts, a passenger liner much like the ill-fated Goh Ryu-Maru.

  As the Comet glides closer toward Highgate, we pass the first Royal Navy spacecraft I’ve yet seen: an enormous vessel, one hundred and thirty meters long, too large for a docking cradle. At its stern is a large, ovoid-shaped fusion engine. A long truss containing enormous fuel tanks leads to a cluster of six habitation cylinders, arranged behind a large, scooplike aerobrake. A winged horse has been painted across the aerobrake.

  Rohr looks up, sees what I’m looking at. “That’s the Pegasus,” he says. “Flagship of the Royal Navy. Just commissioned. Big bitch, isn’t she?” There’s venom in his voice. “It was still under construction when we last saw her. Looks like she’s getting ready for her shakedown cruise.”

  “Doesn’t sound like you’re happy about it.”

  Rohr doesn’t reply; he deliberately looks away from the massive ship. “The Navy commissioned Pegasus as a battleship,” Jeri says softly. “It’s designed for fast runs to the outer system.”

  “You mean the Pax is preparing for another System War?”

  The two of them glance at each other. “It sure seems that way, yeah,” Rohr says. “If I were you, though, I’d keep that idea to myself…especially since you’re going to Clarke County.” He nods toward Highgate. “If I swing things right, I can get you on the next shuttle.”

  “He’s going to request a ferry to come out and pick you up,” Jeri says as her husband murmurs into his headset. “It’ll take you to the shuttle. Can you handle things from here, Rohr?”

  “Armstronged. Take the kid below and throw him out the airlock.”

  We went over this last night, just before the freighter entered cislunar space. In order to avoid unnecessary hassles with Pax customs, I’m going to jump ship before it docks at Highgate. The Brain had already phonied up a set of fake credentials under my John Ulnar pseudonym; they’re with the rest of my belongings belowdecks. This way, if something goes wrong and customs gets wise to me, then Jeri and Rohr can always claim that they barely knew me when they took John Ulnar aboard as a temporary second officer. Makes it safer for them.

  Jeri unbuckles her harness and pushes herself out of her seat. She starts to lead me toward the deck hatch, but I linger one last moment behind Furland’s chair. “Hey, Rohr…”

  “Don’t worry about it, kid. Pleasure was all mine.” He reaches over his shoulder and gives me the thumb’s-up handshake customary among Belters. “If it means anything, you’re the best Second we’ve ever had. You didn’t drop the line. If things were different, I’d even consider asking you to stay on.”

  “Thanks, boss.” There’s something hard in my throat.

  “But if anyone asks, you’ve never heard of me. And we’ve never heard of you. Fresh apples?”

  “Fresh apples.”

  He releases my hand. “Now get out of here. We’ve got a ferry docking at the main hatch in ten minutes.”

  And that’s it. The end of my tour as second officer on the TBSA Comet.

  I’m wearing the same jumpsuit I put on when I first came aboard. In my little carry-on bag are some second-hand clothes from Rohr’s closet, including a pair of stikshoes. In my pocket is a cheap wallet containing a plastic card with John Ulnar’s vital stats, plus five hundred kilolox transferred from the Comet’s account at the TBSA credit union. I’ve got a new toothbrush and some headache and antacid pills that I scrounged from the ship’s storeroom. I’ve got a woolen tam pulled over my hair, which I’ve grown to shoulder length along with a full beard; I look like a fucking hippie now, but it’s changed my appearance just enough that I don’t closely resemble the clean-cut kid who escaped from 4442 Garcia ten months ago.

  This is a complete inventory of my possessions. Yet, as I hold onto a handrail in the main airlock, the captain presents me with one last gift: the rapier I’ve been using these last few months during our mock-combat sessions in the corridor.

  “Aw, Jeri, c’mon…”

  “It isn’t a souvenir, Alec. You may need this.” She wraps its belt around my waist and cinches it tight. “The Pax isn’t like the Old United States. Common law allows arguments to be settled by public duel, and you’ve got a big mouth.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  She kneels to loosely tie the bottom strap of the sheath against my left lower thigh so that the rapier doesn’t drift about in free fall. “I’m serious. After Queen Macy
died and Lucius Robeson was crowned as king, Clarke County became much more dangerous than it was when the New Ark was in charge. Lucius is scared of another coup d’etat, and since he used to be director of Royal Intelligence, there’re agents everywhere. If you’re ever tempted to…to…what’s that expression?”

  “Be a smartass.”

  She nods as she stands up. “Yes, be a smartass…then reconsider. Stay low, blend into the background, and trust no one. And whatever else you do…”

  “Don’t tell anyone I’m a deadhead.”

  “Yes. Above all, don’t…”

  “Got it.”

  “Very well. Ready for download?”

  I nod, then triple-blink. “Chip, open ten megs for downloading.”

  “Ten megs cleared, Alec,” Chip says. “Ready to download.”

  I close my eyes as Jeri instructs the Brain to download the information she’s already selected from the ship’s AI: maps of Clarke County, The Royal Book of Common Law, The Astronaut’s General Handbook, common AI codes and protocols, a rundown on local customs and traditions, whatever else I might need to know. Survival stuff. A long menu of files flashes against my eyelids, then a bar graph tells me that the files have been transferred. I’ve now got the equivalent of six thousand pages of text stored in my MINN, and I don’t even have a headache.

  I open my eyes. “It’s all there. Thanks.”

  “Welcome.”

  An uncomfortable moment of silence as we face each other for the last time. After ten months, I’ve come to accept Jeri Lee-Bose not only as my captain, but also as the best friend I’ve made since my resurrection. The Superior who wanted to run me through with a rapier in the secondary airlock has been replaced by a beautiful woman with large blue eyes and an incredible collection of tattoos. She’s been my teacher, my trainer, my confidante. I like Rohr, but I’m practically in love with Jeri.

  There’s a hard thump beneath our feet. Lights flash across the airlock hatch panel. The ferry has arrived.

  “Guess my ride’s here,” I murmur.

  She smiles, raises one long-fingered hand. “Good luck, Alec. Easy flight.”