TWENTY-THREE
Coda Ten. Cultural Opposition.
It is necessary to set aside cultural dread. Conflict and avoidance of contact are barriers to the progress of civilized worlds and the custodial duty. Coda One describes how ours is not an enduring and safe universe. Higher life has a narrow temporal and spatial range. The universe needs no assistance to deplete complex life. What is required is to overcome xenophobia and endeavor to further the prospects of sentient species. The cultural records stored here and elsewhere may provide familiarity and interest in diverse sentient populations. Species and cultures may undergo change as a result. In approaching concourse with other advanced species, avoid fear and consternation. We are not immune from such states of dread. While accepting the custodial duty, we could not accept ourselves changed or our culture altered. It is a barrier to our survival. We do not survive.
Anton awoke, overheated, sweat slicking his body. Checking the time, he saw that he'd slept a full shift and more, pursued by disturbing dreams: the judipon lowering the wire cage over a girl's head; Maypong walking, red footprints on the path.
Anton dressed, then sat on the edge of the bunk, dreams lingering. On a day when he should have awakened thinking of what lay ahead, he was beset by things that had passed. The people he must put behind him: Maypong, Bailey, Vidori, Gilar, Shim. And Oleel. Today the Restoration would leave orbit, beginning the run to the Kardashev tunnel, the journey back.
He found himself going in search of someone to talk to. That would be Zhen.
She wasn't in her cabin, but he soon found her. She was with Sergeant Webb, sitting in his compact cabin, a flask of whiskey on a table between them.
Webb stood. “Busted,” the older man said. “Begging your pardon, Captain.”
Anton said, “I hope you have another glass, Sergeant.”
Webb's mouth curled into a smile. He rose to accomplish the task, then plopped down a chipped mug and splashed some amber liquid in it. Given the ship's space and personal stowage limitations, Webb was rumored to have nursed three bottles of fine whiskey through the entire voyage. Captain Darrow had taken a glass or two with the man, but this was Anton's first.
Zhen smirked. “I didn't think you broke the rules, Captain.”
“Sometimes you have to,” Anton murmured, and got a rare smile from her.
They drank in silence for a time. Webb watched Anton with a steady gaze. He leaned forward to top off his captain's drink.
Webb refilled his own, waving the bottle at Zhen, who demurred. He sat back with his drink, saying, “We're about done with systems tests, Anton. Could fire up anytime.” It was time for that, of course.
Anton rolled the whiskey over his tongue, swallowed. And again. It cauterized the bad taste in his mouth. The one that came from his misgivings, the misgivings that now, after a bit of whiskey, were becoming clear to him. The bad taste came from abandoning Maypong's world. Even though he had to.
Though he had a clear responsibility and mission, and there was no possible dispute of what he had to do, he had been fending off an errant thought for days now. The unwelcome knowledge that his mission, so extraordinarily successful, was yet a failure. In a moment of cynicism, the entire endeavor could be summed up in a few cold words: We came. We took. We left.
“Captain?” Webb leaned back, cradling his drink. In a tone both straightforward and muted, he said, “It might help to talk.”
“Yes, I think it would.” Anton floundered for a beginning, but Zhen and Webb weren't in a hurry, and there was half a bottle left.
Anton said, barely audible, “Feels like hell. Leaving.” He took a drink. “That's the short of it.”
Webb raised an eyebrow at Zhen, then refilled all of their glasses. ‘And the long of it?”
Anton tilted his chin in the direction of the portal in Webb's cabin. “That world below us, Ethan. It's the repository. We're leaving it to a raging tyrant, a woman who can depose a decent king.”
Zhen said, “I thought you killed her.”
“With luck. But Nirimol could carry on.” After a pause he said, “But it's not just the Olagong on my mind.”
“No,” Zhen said. She took a drink, murmuring, “It's worlds within worlds.”
Webb frowned. “But we've got the code.”
Zhen murmured, “Some of it.”
Anton had the sudden, gladdening thought that the woman just might be walking down the same logic path he was. He turned his attention to Webb, the man who might have missed Captain Darrow, but who'd remained loyal to the new captain.
Anton decided to trust him. He had to say this thing before his better judgment quelled the thought, much less the words.
He said, “What if we stayed?”
The sergeant was gazing at him, betraying nothing.
For a moment, Anton thought of Vidori. When they had first seen the fires on the river that were meant to stamp out the Quadi legacy, Vidori had said, You and I, Anton, are not devoted to such worlds … Leaving unsaid, We are devoted to more narrow concerns. You for Earth, I for my power in the Olagong. And this is not a good thing.
Zhen was staring fixedly at her glass of whiskey.
Finally Webb said, “Earth needs what's in those holds, Anton.” He locked gazes with his captain, not with hostility, but immovably. To someone like Webb, the mission goal was not for tampering with.
Anton wanted to say, Sometimes the goal changes. But he thought better of the direct approach. Rather, he said, “Earth could still have it. We could send word back about what we've found. Let them decide to come for it.”
Webb hadn't moved. “That would take years, Captain.”
Years. Three years for the mission's report to reach Earth, if borne by a drone craft through the subspace tunneling. Given Earth politics, it could take considerably longer.
Anton said, “They have some time.” It was a risk to say so. It sounded like he was consolidating his position. And so he was.
“Look, Ethan,” he said. “The Olagong is more than it appears. That war down there is not just about which petty ruler wins. We have a stake in it. Oleel and Nirimol mean to destroy much of what the old race worked to save.” He looked at Zhen. “Worlds.”
Zhen put her glass on the table, sitting upright. “There are varieties of that plant that have been thriving in narrow ecological niches for ten thousand years. The loss is…” She shook her head. “It's unthinkable.” She looked up, noting
Webb's confusion. “The other worlds are folded into other subspecies of langva. On board here we only have the few species I was working on, that I had in the lab this week. What we have in our hold represents a damn narrow goal.”
Anton said quietly: “The mission can change its goal.”
Webb took a long pull on his drink. Staring into the glass, he said, “The crew might not last the ride home. It's not what anybody wants to say, but the radiation pounding is making hash out of our resistance. Maybe the virus reservoir is right here, in our own crew. It could break out again. With our luck, it will.” His shoulders relaxed then, and he turned to Anton with a more open face. “I don't know about other worlds; that goes beyond what's in my keeping. But the lads and gals are mine to see to, begging your pardon, Anton. They've been in my care. I put half of ‘em in shrouds. I don't care to do that again.” He stopped then, not giving an aye or nay to the matter, but leaving room for Anton to do so.
And he did. “Here's a proposal then. I won't make this an order—but I'm not putting it to a ship vote, either.” He clearly remembered Bailey's acid words: This isn't a union ship. We don't whine, and we don't vote. “We send our report to Earth. Tell them everything, urge them to come. But out front, tell them about the Dassa: what they are, and why. And why it's hard—sometimes impossible—to accept. Tell them there are varieties of worlds. Varieties of human. So they can get used to the idea.”
And whether they came or not, his crew would also have to accept changes. Their future was with the born to bear. If Maypong had lived, she would have insisted that he have sarif with those most like himself. He was sure that she would have. And in like manner, she would have claimed full sarif expression for herself. They would have worked it out, somehow.
He closed his eyes, thinking of her.
“Captain?” Zhen was frowning. ‘Are we going to do this or aren't we?”
Anton looked up. For this to work, he needed Webb's support. His firm support. He locked gazes with the man, and Webb understood what was being asked.
Webb gave the slightest dip of his chin as an answer. “God help me,” Webb said.
“God help us all,” Anton murmured.
“Was that a yesì” Zhen snapped.
Anton thought of the small band they would form, when eventually everyone came down to the Olagong. They would be immigrants, and would very much need each other. He realized that he had always liked Zhen, despite her quick temper. She always said what she thought, and that would be a relief in the Olagong.
“Yes,” Anton said. “That was a yes.”
He reached for the whiskey bottle.
Nick took a deep breath, looking into Spence Norval's face. Spence was loosening his bonds. But was he really? Nick knew that he sometimes saw things that weren't real. It was the stress, the stress of the universe's unraveling.
Spence was saying that the Restoration wasn't going home after all. That Anton had decided to stay For a moment Nick was relieved that they weren't going to bring the infected DNA home. But a problem still remained: the drone and its packet of information about the riches found, the answer to Earth's problems. So Earth would send another ship, and then it would begin all over again, the nightmare. No, the folks back home needed to remember that the Restoration had pursued the signal and never been heard from again.
Spence was swearing under his breath, fumbling with the code on the restraint locks that bound Nick to the bunk.
“Who's with us, then?” Nick asked.
“Lupe for sure. She'll meet us on the flight deck. First we commandeer the arms locker. By that time she'll have more people with her. The ones who want to go home.”
“On the flight deck with Webb.” He stopped for a moment, searching Nick's eyes. “You said Anton has got to be stopped, right? You're with us on this, Nick?”
He hated to lie to Spence—the man meant well. But he didn't know the things Nick knew.
“We'll stop him,” Nick said. “Stop him cold. It's what Captain Darrow … would have done.” He didn't want to discuss how Captain Darrow was still around. Unless he was a phantom. It didn't matter, though. The rest was true, about how once the genomes were brought home, were cloned, they'd revert to Dassa form.
“Give me a gun, Spence.”
The restraints sprang free, and Nick was struggling to his feet. A small pistol came into his hand. Spence looked at him. “Don't fire on the crew. Just Webb and the captain.”
Nick nodded. Just kill the fat sergeant and the thin captain. Got it. Spence turned to the cabin door to check the ship corridor.
Behind him, Nick brought the gun up and hit Spence on the skull. The man crumpled.
At the door, he listened for sounds in the corridor, then slipped out, moving quickly, with more energy than he'd had in weeks. It was finally coming to the point—the point of his life, of his death.
Scrambling down the ladder to mid-deck, Nick thanked his luck that there were only a handful of able-bodied crew walking the decks. The ship was big and empty now, big as a mausoleum with the dead and the near dead aboard.
At the hold, he yanked a release, then pulled up the hatchway from the floor and slipped down onto the bulkhead ladder. He pulled the hatch shut, and descended.
There was the science module off to starboard, and to port, the hold, now pressurized, Nick knew, holding Zhen's samples. But it was cold down here, or else Nick was sweating and shivering on his own.
His hands shook as he touched the keypad by the hold doors. Now that it came to the moment, he trembled. He was afraid. Wet spots from his fingers lingered on the keypad as he programmed in a sequence that would open the doors and lock them in place, bringing the ship in contact with the vacuum of space.
But not yet. He slipped into the hold as the doors closed behind him.
Around him the bagged samples huddled among the canisters and sealed cartons of the ship's stores. The samples with the little tags dangling from them, showing Zhen's system of collection: time, place, descriptors. Like tags on the toes in a morgue. Nick didn't blame Zhen. She was trying to save her people. The whole mission had begun that way, but the lie couldn't hold up.
He finished coding in the sequence on the outside bay doors. They'd open in… what, four minutes? OK, four minutes. Because anything less wouldn't give him time to say good-bye. Even after all that had transpired between him and Anton, Nick still wanted Anton to know that good men could disagree. For in the end, Nick still loved Anton as a friend. Past rage and hate, he'd ended back at friendship. Now that he was going to kill the ship, it was calming to know it was for love.
He turned to the comm node. Punched in the flight deck. He hugged his sides with his arms. So cold. His body seemed to be turning off a few minutes too early, going to zero. Preparing for annihilation. It aided his feeling of calm.
But when he linked with Anton on the flight deck, a stab of warmth came back.
“Anton,” Nick said. His voice wobbled. He coughed to clear his throat. ‘Anton.”
“Nick? Where are you?”
“Far away.”
A muffled voice. Anton sending someone down to the brig, no doubt. Nick didn't have much time. He looked at the chronometer on the outside bay doors. 3:26, 3:25, 3:24.
“I just wanted to tell you that I know you meant to do the right thing. I was against you. But I know you tried to do it right.” He coughed. “You were wrong, though, Anton.”
“Nick, where are you?”
“I'm dying. Leaving now.” Anton's voice was stabbing at him. His old friend. They were both so young. Had tried to do it right. Failed. But he did love the man.
“Anton. I'm sorry. You get ready to die now.”
2:05,2:04.
Nick could hear running on the mid-deck. They'd found Spence, maybe.
“Let me help you, Nick. I know you've been hurt. Let's talk. Will you talk to me?” Muffled voices came through the comm node. The flight deck was astir now. They were wondering where he was. Mustn't say.
Nick said, “Remember how we played cards until we were stupid? How we bet ourselves into debt?” Nick tried to laugh, but couldn't conjure it. “I think you owe me ‘bout a million, don't you?”
“I do owe you, Nick.”
1:16, 1:15, 1:14.
“Forget it. I forgive it all, Anton. I'm leaving. We're all leaving, and every one of these bags.”
Nick turned to look at the hold. It would all blow out the bay doors within seconds. A quick way to go, by God, not the slow slide he'd been on …
“Anton?” He waited. But there was no answer. ‘Anton?”
Nick swore. The bags. He'd given away his position. Oh, Venning, you screwed up again. Again and again.
Then, gathering his wits, he started keying the pad. There was under a minute to go, but it was too long. He had to shorten the sequence. Only it was locked. That would take a while to undo. His hands shook as he punched in a maneuver to instantly open the bay doors and the interior ship doors opposite. To open both doors, to blow out the ship.
For love of duty.
Anton was dashing for the flight deck door. “He's in the cargo hold,” he shouted at Webb. “Override him. He's going to lock open the bay doors.”
He ran. Behind him, he heard Webb shouting for backup. Anton pounded down the short passageway from the flight deck, to the forward ladder, sliding down it and hitting mid-deck with both feet.
Webb was on the ship intercom, saying, “We're trying, Captain, but he's got us locked out. You've got thirty seconds before he blows it.”
Anton raced to the hatchway in the floor, unlocking the arm and swinging the hatch door up. Sliding through, he found the bulkhead ladder and slid down to the lower deck.
The instrument pad by the side of the cargo bay doors was blinking orange. A Klaxon had come on sometime during his race to the hold, blaring in tandem with the pulsing of the light.
Anton was at the keypad, pressing Override. Override. But the light still pulsed, turning his fingers the color of fire. Override. The counter was showing twenty seconds. Nineteen. This couldn't be.
Anton activated the comm node on the door. “Nick. Release the inner door. Take the cargo with you. Let us live. Your last act of honor. Do it, Nick.”
Nick's voice came thin and reedy through the intercom. “Good-bye, Anton. See you soon, old buddy.”
Anton drew his pistol and fired point blank into the keypad. The electronics flared blue.
Then a rumble grabbed the deck, a tremor and a double-punch explosion. Nick had blown the bay doors.
But the inner doors held. From behind them came the crashing of materials blasting toward the open bay the chaos of every loose part, tool, and shred of exploded equipment whirling in a frenzy to reach the gap and jettison into space. Among them, one Nick Venning, lately of the starship Restoration. Once of sound mind. Once a friend.
Anton lay his head against his arm along the bulkhead, catching his breath.
In the next moment, Ensign Petry was crashing down the ladder, armed and with a wild look in his eyes.
Anton turned to him. “Doors held,” he said, wonderingly
Petry's eyes widened as it sank in that the cargo hold was blown. He held his pistol, pointing it at the door as though hell itself was likely to throw open the doors and come charging though.
Petry looked up as Webb lumbered down the ladder. Then he holstered his weapon, murmuring to Anton, “The crew was with you, Captain. We were never going to …” He looked at the cargo hold. “It was only Spence and Lupe.”
Anton nodded, clapping him on the shoulder. “Thank you. Stick with me, will you? I'll need you.”
Petry gave a crumpled smile. “Yes, sir.” Then: “We want our feet on real ground. We'll stay, Captain.”
Webb looked at the hole in the bulkhead where the control pad had been. “Not elegant, Captain.” He grimaced at the damage. “Kind of like going through the hut wall that time?”
Anton shrugged. He was developing a style. Not a great one, but it was better than none at all. “Yes, Sergeant,” he said. “Kind of like that.”