CHAPTER II

A muffled boom sounded, loud enough to penetrate even the deepest of sleep.

Then clanks and clatters, followed by a rush of cold and a flare of light, bright and searching. Voices echoed, distant and garbled but discernibly human.

Some small part of Kira’s mind noticed. A primal, instinctual part that drove her toward wakefulness, urging her to open her eyes—open her eyes! —before it was too late.

She struggled to move, but her body refused to respond. She floated inside herself, trapped by her flesh and unable to control it.

Then she felt herself inhale, and sensation flooded back to her. The sounds seemed to double in volume and clarity, as if she’d removed a set of earplugs. Her skin tingled as the suit’s mask crawled back from her face, and she gasped and opened her eyes.

A blinding light swung across her, and she winced.

“Holy shit! She’s alive! ” A man’s voice. Young, overeager.

“Don’t touch her. Call the doctor. ” A woman’s voice. Flat, calm.

No … not the doctor, Kira thought.

The light stayed focused on her. She tried to cover her eyes, but a foil blanket stopped her hand. It was wrapped tight across her chest and neck. When had she done that?

A woman’s face swam into view, huge and pale, like a cratered moon. “Can you hear me? Who are you? Are you hurt? ”

“Wh—” Kira’s vocal cords refused to cooperate. All she could produce was an inarticulate rasp. She struggled to free herself from the foil blanket, but it refused to give. She slumped back, dizzy and exhausted. What … where…?

The silhouette of a man blocked the light for a moment, and she heard him say, with a distinct accent: “Here then, let me see. ”

“Aish, ” said the woman as she moved aside.

Then fingers, warm, thin fingers, were touching Kira on the arms and sides and around her jaw, and then she was being pulled out of the pilot’s seat.

“Whoa. Look at that skinsuit! ” exclaimed the younger man.

“Looking is for later. Help me take her to sickbay. ”

More hands touched her, and they turned her so her head pointed toward the airlock. She made a feeble attempt to right herself, and the doctor—she assumed it was the doctor—said, “No, no. Rest now. You mustn’t move. ”

Kira slipped in and out of awareness as she floated through the airlock … down a white, accordion pressure tube … then a brown corridor illuminated by scuffed lightstrips … and finally a small room lined with drawers and equipment; was that a medibot along the wall? …

A jolt of acceleration returned Kira to full consciousness. For the first time in weeks, a sensation of weight, blessed weight, settled over her.

She blinked and looked around, feeling alert, if weak.

She was lying on an angled bed with a strap secured across her hips to keep her from floating or falling off. A sheet was pulled up beneath her chin (she was still wearing her jumpsuit). Lightstrips glowed overhead, and there was a medibot mounted to the ceiling. The sight reminded her of waking up in the sickbay on Adra. …

But no, this was different. Unlike at the survey base, the room was tiny, barely more than a closet.

Sitting on the edge of a metal sink was a young man. The same one she’d heard earlier? He was thin and gangly, and the sleeves of his olive jumpsuit were rolled back to expose sinewy forearms. His pant legs were rolled up as well. Striped socks showed red between cuff and shoe. He looked to be in his late teens, but it was hard to tell exactly.

Between her and the kid stood a tall, dark-skinned man. The doctor, she guessed, based off the stethoscope draped around his neck. His hands were long and restless, fingers darting fish-like with quick intent. Instead of a jumpsuit, he wore a slate-blue turtleneck and matching slacks.

Neither outfit was a standard uniform. The two definitely weren’t military. And they weren’t Hydrotek personnel. Independent contractors, then, or freelancers, which confused her. If she wasn’t on the gas-mining station, where was she?

The doctor noticed her looking. “Ah, Ms., you’re awake. ” He cocked his head, his large, round eyes serious. “How are you feeling? ”

“Not—” Kira’s voice came out in a harsh croak. She stopped, coughed, and then tried again. “Not too bad. ” To her astonishment, it was the truth. She was stiff and sore, but everything seemed to be in working order. Better, in some cases; her senses felt sharper than normal. She wondered if the suit had integrated itself even further into her nervous system during the trip.

The doctor frowned. He seemed the anxious type. “That’s most surprising, Ms. Your core temperature was exceedingly low. ” He held up a hypo. “It is necessary to take blood so—”

“No! ” said Kira, more forcefully than she intended. She couldn’t afford to let the doctor examine her or he’d realize what the Soft Blade was. “I don’t want any blood tests. ”

She pulled back the sheet, unclipped the strap holding her down, and slid off the bed.

The moment her feet hit the deck, her knees buckled and she toppled forward. She would have face-planted if the doctor hadn’t sprung over and caught her. “Not to worry, Ms. I have you. I have you. ” He lifted her back onto the bed.

Across the room, the kid pulled a ration bar from his pocket and started to gnaw on it.

Kira raised a hand, and the doctor backed off. “I’m fine. I can do it. Just give me a moment. ”

He eyed her, his expression speculative. “How long were you in zero-g, Ms.? ”

She didn’t answer but lowered herself to the floor again. This time her legs held, although she kept a hand on the bed to steady herself. She was surprised (and pleased) by how well her muscles worked. They had barely atrophied, if at all. Second by second, she could feel strength returning to her limbs.

“About eleven weeks, ” she said.

The doctor’s thick eyebrows climbed upward. “And how long since you last ate? ”

Kira did a quick internal check. She was hungry, but not unbearably so. She ought to have been starving. More to the point, she ought to have been starved. She’d expected to arrive at 61 Cygni too weak to stand.

The Soft Blade had to be responsible. Somehow it must have put her into hibernation.

“I don’t remember. … A couple of days. ”

“Not fun, ” the kid muttered through a mouthful of food. Definitely the same voice she’d heard on the Valkyrie.

The doctor glanced back at him. “You have more of those rations, yes? Give one to our guest here. ”

The kid produced another bar from one of his pockets and tossed it to Kira. She caught it, tore open the foil, and took a bite. The rations tasted good: banana-chocolate-something-or-other. Her stomach rumbled audibly as she swallowed.

The doctor opened a drawer and handed her a silvery pouch full of liquid. “Here, when you are finished, drink this. It will replenish your electrolytes and provide you with much-needed nutrients. ”

Kira made a grateful sound. She scarfed down the last of the bar and then drank the contents of the pouch. It had an earthy, slightly metallic taste, like iron-tinged syrup.

Then the doctor raised the hypo again. “Now, I really must insist on taking a blood sample, Ms. I need to check—”

“Look, where am I? Who are you? ”

Taking another bite, the kid said, “You’re on the SLV Wallfish. ”

The doctor looked irritated by the interruption. “Indeed. My name is Vishal, and this is—”

“I’m Trig, ” said the kid, and slapped himself on the chest.

“Okay, ” said Kira, still confused. SLV, that was a civilian ship designation. “But—”

“What’s your name? ” asked Trig, jerking his chin toward her.

Without thinking, Kira said, “Ensign Kaminski. ” They’d discover her real name easily enough if they started checking records, but her first instinct was to play things cautiously until she understood the situation better. She could always claim she’d gotten confused from lack of food. “Are we close to Tsiolkovsky? ”

Vishal seemed taken aback. “Close to … No, not at all, Ms. Kaminski. ”

“That’s all the way on the other side of Sixty-One Cygni, ” said the kid. He gulped down the last of his bar.

“Huh? ” said Kira, disbelieving.

The doctor bobbed his head. “Yes, yes, Ms. Kaminski. Your ship lost power after you returned to normal space, and you were coasting across the whole of the system. If we hadn’t rescued you, who knows how long you might have drifted? ”

“What day is it? ” Kira asked, suddenly concerned. The doctor and the kid looked at her strangely, and she knew what they were thinking; Why didn’t she just check the date on her overlays? “My implants aren’t working. What day is it? ”

“It’s the sixteenth, ” said Trig.

“Of November, ” said Kira.

“Of November, ” he confirmed.

Her trip had taken a week longer than planned. Eighty-eight days, not eighty-one. By all rights, she ought to be dead. But she had made it. She thought of Tschetter and Corporal Iska, and a strange disquiet afflicted her. Had they been rescued? Were they even still alive? They could have starved to death during her time on the Valkyrie, or the graspers could have killed them and she might never know.

Whatever the truth might be, she resolved to never forget their names or actions, no matter how long she lived. It was the only way she had of honoring their sacrifice.

Vishal clucked his tongue. “You can ask all your questions later, but first, I really must check to make sure you are okay, Ms. Kaminski. ”

A twinge of panic formed in Kira, and for the first time since waking, the Soft Blade stirred in response: a wash of cold prickles rising from thighs to chest. Her panic worsened, now colored by dread. Have to stay calm. If the crew of the Wallfish knew what she was carrying, they’d stick her in quarantine, and she was in no hurry to experience that particular pleasure again. In any case, the UMC wouldn’t look kindly on her revealing the existence of the xeno to civilians. The more her rescuers knew about the Soft Blade, the more trouble she’d be creating, both for them and for herself.

She shook her head. “Thanks, but I’m fine. ”

The doctor hesitated, appearing frustrated. “Ms. Kaminski, I cannot be treating you properly if you won’t let me finish my examination. This is just a simple blood test, and—”

“No blood tests! ” Kira said, more loudly than before. The front of her jumpsuit started to tent outward as a patch of short spikes formed on the Soft Blade. Desperate, she did the only thing she could think of: she willed that area of the suit to harden.

It worked.

The spikes froze in place, and she crossed her arms over her chest, hoping neither Vishal nor the kid would notice. Her heart was pounding uncomfortably fast.

From outside the sickbay sounded a new voice: “What are you, Orthodox Hutterite? ”

A man stepped through the doorway. He was shorter than her, with sharp blue eyes in startling contrast to his deep spacer’s tan. A day’s worth of black stubble covered his chin and cheeks, but his hair was neat and combed. His apparent age was early forties, although of course, he could have just as easily been sixty as forty. Kira guessed he was on the younger side of that equation, as his nose and ears didn’t show much, if any, age-related growth.

He wore a knit shirt under a vest with military-style webbing, and he had a well-worn blaster strapped to his right thigh. His hand, Kira noticed, never strayed far from the grip of the weapon.

There was an air of command about the man; the kid and the doctor straightened seemingly without noticing as he entered. Kira had known men like him before: hard, no-nonsense SOBs who wouldn’t settle for half-truths. Moreover, if she had to guess, he would sooner stab her in the back than allow anything bad to happen to his ship or crew.

That made him dangerous, but if he wasn’t a complete bastard, and if she dealt with him straight—straight as she could—he would probably treat her fairly.

“Something like that, ” Kira said. She wasn’t particularly religious, but it was a convenient excuse.

He grunted. “Let her be, Doc. If the woman doesn’t want to be examined, the woman doesn’t have to be examined. ”

“But—” Vishal started to say.

“You heard me, Doc. ”

Vishal bobbed his head in agreement, but Kira could see him suppressing his anger.

Then the blue-eyed man said to her, “Captain Falconi at your service. ”

“Ensign Kaminski. ”

“You have a first name? ”

Kira hesitated for a brief moment. “Ellen. ” It was her mother’s.

“That’s a hell of a skinsuit you have there, Ellen, ” said Falconi. “Not exactly standard-issue UMC gear. ”

She tugged on the cuffs of her jumpsuit, pulling them farther down her arms. “It was a gift from my boyfriend, custom-made. I didn’t have time to get into anything else before leaving on the Valkyrie. ”

“Uh-huh. And how do you, you know, remove it? ” He motioned toward the side of his head.

Self-conscious, Kira touched her scalp, knowing he was looking at the fibers crisscrossing her skin. “It peels right off. ” She mimed with her fingers, as if to pull up the edge of the xeno. But she didn’t because she couldn’t.

“Do you have a helmet too? ” asked Trig.

Kira shook her head. “Not anymore. But I can use any standard skinsuit helmet. ”

“Cool. ”

Then Falconi said, “So here’s the deal, Ellen. We got your crewmates transferred to our ship. They’re fine, but we’re leaving them in cryo until we dock, as we’re already packed to the gills. I assume the UMC is eager to debrief you—and I assume you’re eager to report in—but it’ll have to wait. Our transmitter got damaged a few days ago, which means we can’t send data, only receive it. ”

“Can’t you use the equipment on the Valkyrie? ” Kira asked. She immediately regretted it. Dammit, don’t make their job any easier.

Falconi shook his head. “My machine boss says the damage to your shuttle caused the electrical system to short out when the fusion drive was reactivated. It fried the computer, shut down the reactor, et cetera, et cetera. Your companions are just lucky the power cells on the cryo tubes held. ”

“So no one back at Command knows the five of us are alive? ” Kira said.

“Not you particularly, ” said Falconi. “But they know at least four people were on the shuttle. The thermal signatures were pretty clear. It’s why the UMC put out an open contract for any ship that could rendezvous with the Valkyrie before it ended up out on the far edge of the system. Fortunately for you, we had the delta-v to spare. ”

Kira felt possibilities opening up before her. If the UMC didn’t know she was alive, and Orso and the others were still in cryo, maybe—just maybe—there was an opportunity for her to avoid getting disappeared by the UMC and the League.

“How long until we make port? ” she asked.

“A week. We’re heading in-system to Ruslan. Got a bunch of passengers in the hold to drop off. ” The captain raised an eyebrow. “We ended up pretty far off track going after the Valkyrie. ”

A week. Could she keep the Soft Blade a secret for a whole week? She’d have to; there was no other choice.

Then Falconi said, “Your flight path shows you came from Sigma Draconis. ”

“That’s right. ”

“What happened? Those older drives can only manage, what, point one four light-years per day? That’s a hell of a long trip to tackle without cryo. ”

Kira hesitated.

“Did the Jellies hit you? ” said Trig.

“Jellies? ” she said, puzzled, but grateful for the extra few seconds to think.

“You know, the aliens. Jellies. Jellyfish. That’s what we’re calling them. ”

A growing sense of horror filled Kira as he spoke. She glanced between him and the captain. “Jellies. ”

Falconi leaned against the frame of the door. “You wouldn’t have heard. It happened after you left Sigma Draconis. An alien ship jumped in around Ruslan—what, two months ago? —and hit three different transports. Destroyed one of them. Then groups of them started popping up all over the place: Shin-Zar, Eidolon, even Sol. Punched holes through three cruisers in orbit around Venus. ”

“After that, ” said Vishal, “the League formally declared war on the intruders. ”

“War, ” said Kira, flat. Her worst fears had come true.

“It’s shaping up to be a bad one too, ” said Falconi. “The Jellies have been doing their best to knock the fight out of us. They’ve been disabling ships throughout the League, blowing up antimatter farms, landing troops on colonies, that sort of thing. ”

“Have they attacked Weyland? ”

The captain shrugged. “Hell if I know. Probably. FTL comms aren’t exactly reliable right now. The Jellies have been jamming them all they can. ”

The back of Kira’s neck prickled. “You mean they’re here? Now? ”

“Yup! ” said Trig. “Seven of them! Three of the larger battleships, four of the smaller cruisers with double blasters mounted—”

Falconi raised a hand, and the kid obediently stopped. “They’ve been harassing ships between here and Sixty-One Cygni B for the past few weeks. The UMC are doing their best to keep the Jellies tied up, but they just don’t have enough forces. ”

“What do the Jellies want? ” Kira asked, feeling overwhelmed. Underneath her jumpsuit, the Soft Blade stirred again. She struggled to calm herself. Somehow she had to find a way to contact her family, figure out if they were safe and let them know she was still alive, consequences be damned. “Are they trying to conquer us, or…? ”

“Wish I could tell you. They don’t seem to be trying to wipe us out, but that’s about all we know. They attack here, they attack there … If I had to guess, I’d say they’re softening us up for something more serious. You didn’t answer my question, though. ”

“Huh? ”

“About Sigma Draconis. ”

“Ah. ” Kira gathered her thoughts. “We were attacked, ” she said. “I guess by the Jellies. ”

“We? ” said Falconi.

“The Extenuating Circumstances. We were on patrol, and Captain Henriksen stopped by Adrasteia to check on the survey team there. That night we got ambushed. My boyfriend, he, uh—” Kira’s voice broke slightly, and then she continued. “He didn’t make it. Most of the crew didn’t. A few of us managed to get to the shuttle before the Extenuating Circumstances lost containment. When it went, it took out the aliens as well. The five of us drew straws to see who would go into cryo, and I got the short end. ”

That did it; Kira could tell Falconi believed her. But he didn’t relax, not entirely. With his middle finger he tapped the grip of his blaster; the movement seemed more habit than conscious gesture.

“Did you see any of the Jellies? ” Trig asked, sounding excited. The kid pulled another ration bar from his pocket and tore open the wrapper. “What shape were they? How big? Big-big or just … big? ” He took several quick bites, stuffing his mouth until his cheeks bulged.

Kira didn’t feel like making up another story. “Yeah, I saw one. It was big enough, and it had too many tentacles. ”

“Those are not the only kind, ” said Vishal.

“Oh? ”

“No one knows if they are the same species, a close relation, or something else entirely, but the Jellies come in different flavors. ”

Speaking past the food in his mouth, Trig said, “Some have tentacles. Some have arms. Some crawl. Some slither. Some only seem to function in zero-g. Others only get deployed in gravity wells. Some appear in both. A half-dozen different kinds have been spotted so far, but there could be lots more. I’ve collected all the reports from the League. If you’re interested, I could—”

“Alright, Trig, ” said Falconi. “That can wait. ”

The kid nodded and fell quiet, although he seemed slightly disappointed.

Falconi scratched his chin with his free hand, his eyes uncomfortably sharp. “You must have been one of the first ones the Jellies attacked. You left Sigma Draconis, what, back in mid-August? ”

“Yeah. ”

“Were you able to get a warning off to the League beforehand? ”

“Only via slower-than-light. Why? ”

Falconi made a noncommittal sound. “I was just wondering if the League knew about the Jellies before they started appearing everywhere. Guess not, but—”

A short, loud tone sounded overhead, and the captain’s eyes grew vague as he shifted his attention to his overlays. The same occurred with both Trig and Vishal.

“What is it? ” Kira asked, noting the concern on their faces.

“More Jellies, ” said Falconi.

A tall, straight-backed woman hurried up to Falconi and tapped him on the shoulder. She looked older than him, old enough that most people would begin to consider their first round of STEM shots. Her hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, and the sleeves of her tan work shirt were rolled up. Like Falconi, she wore a blaster strapped to her leg.

She said, “Captain—”

“I see them. That makes two … no, three new Jellies. ” Falconi’s glacial-blue eyes cleared as he pointed at Trig and snapped his fingers. “Get Ms. Kaminski down to the hold and make sure everyone is secure. We might have to make an emergency burn. ”

“Yessir. ”

The captain and the woman disappeared down the corridor together. Trig stared after them until well after they were gone.

“Who was that? ” Kira asked.

“Ms. Nielsen, ” said Trig. “She’s our first officer. ” He hopped off the counter. “Come on, then. ”

“One minute, ” said Vishal, opening a drawer. He handed a small container to Kira. Inside it, she found a pair of contact lenses floating in liquid-filled capsules. “You can use these to go online while you wait for your implants to be repaired. ”

After so long without any overlays, Kira could hardly wait. She pocketed the container. “Thank you. You don’t know how much this means to me. ”

The doctor bobbed his head and smiled. “My pleasure, Ms. Kaminski. ”

Trig bounced on his heels. “Alright, now can we go? ”

“Yes, go, go! ” said the doctor.

Trying to ignore her sense of foreboding, Kira followed Trig into the narrow, brown-sided corridor. It curved in a gentle arc, forming a ring around what was, no doubt, the midline of the Wallfish. The deck looked as if it had once rotated to provide artificial gravity when the ship wasn’t accelerating, but no more; the orientation of the rooms and furniture—as she had seen in the sickbay—was strictly stern to aft, in line with the engine’s thrust.

“How much did that skinsuit cost? ” Trig asked, pointing at her hand.

“You like it? ” said Kira.

“Yeah. It’s got a cool texture. ”

“Thanks. It was made for survival in extreme environments, like Eidolon. ”

The kid brightened up. “Really? That’s awesome. ”

She smiled without meaning to. “I don’t know how much it cost, though. Like I said, it was a gift. ”

They came to an open doorway on the inner wall of the corridor, and Trig turned. Through it was a second corridor, this one leading toward the middle of the ship.

“So does the Wallfish usually carry passengers? ” Kira asked.

“Nah, ” said Trig. “But a lotta people are willing to pay us to take ’em to Ruslan, where it’s safer. We’ve also been picking up survivors from ships the Jellies have damaged. ”

“Really? That sounds pretty dangerous. ”

The kid shrugged. “Beats sitting around waiting to get shot. ’Sides, we need the money. ”

“Oh? ”

“Yeah. We used the last of our antimatter getting to Sixty-One Cygni, and then the guy who was supposed to pay us stiffed us, so we ended up stuck out here. We’re just trying to earn enough bits so we can buy the antimatter to get back to Sol or Alpha Centauri. ”

As he was talking, they arrived at a pressure door. “Uh, just ignore that, ” said Trig, waving at a patch of wall. He seemed embarrassed. “Old joke. ”

The wall looked blank to Kira. “What? ”

The kid was confused for a moment. “Oh, right. Your implants. ” He tipped a finger toward her. “I forgot. Never mind. Just an overlay we’ve had for a while. The captain thinks it’s funny. ”

“Does he now? ” What sort of thing would make a man like Falconi laugh? Kira wished she was wearing the contacts.

Trig pulled open the pressure door and ushered her into a long, dark shaft that pierced multiple levels of the ship. A ladder ran through the center, and thin metal grating marked off each deck, although the holes in the grating were so wide, she could see all the way to the bottom of the shaft, four decks below.

A male voice that Kira didn’t recognize emanated from above. “Warning: prepare for free fall in T-minus thirty-four seconds. ” A wild quaver laced his words, a theremin-like shimmy that made it seem as if the speaker might at any moment break into tears or laughter or uncontrollable rage. The sound of it caused Kira to tense and the surface of the Soft Blade to become pebble-like.

“Here, ” said Trig as he grabbed a convenient handhold on the wall. Kira did the same.

“That your pseudo-intelligence? ” she asked, motioning toward the ceiling.

“Nope, our ship mind, Gregorovich, ” the kid said proudly.

Kira raised her eyebrows. “You have a ship mind! ” The Wallfish didn’t seem large or well-off enough to warrant one. How had Falconi ever managed to talk a mind into joining the crew? Only half-seriously, she wondered if blackmail had been involved.

“Yup. ”

“He seems a little … different from the other ship minds I’ve met. ”

“Nothing wrong with him. He’s a good ship mind. ”

“I’m sure he is. ”

“He is! ” the kid insisted. “Best one out there. Smarter than any minds but the oldest. ” He grinned, baring a set of crooked front teeth. “He’s our secret weapon. ”

“Smar—”

An alert sounded—a short beep in a minor tone—and then the floor seemed to drop away, and Kira clutched the handhold tighter as vertigo made the walls and floor swirl about her. Her dizziness passed as she reset her perspective from an up-down view to a forward-backward one where she was floating in a long, horizontal tube.

She’d really had enough of free fall.

Behind her, at the back of the tube, she heard a scrabbling noise. She turned to see a whitish-grey Siamese cat hurtle out of an open doorway and collide with the ladder. The cat caught the ladder with its claws and then, with practiced ease, sprang off the rungs and launched itself toward the other end of the shaft.

Kira watched, impressed, as the cat soared along the ladder, turning slightly as it flew, a long furry missile armed with teeth and claws. The cat glared at her as it passed by, venomous hatred flashing from its emerald eyes.

“That’s our ship cat, Mr. Fuzzypants, ” said Trig.

The cat looked more like a murderous little demon than a Mr. Fuzzypants, but Kira took him at his word.

A second later, she heard another noise at the back of the room: this one a metallic-like clatter that reminded her of … hooves?

Then a brown and pink mass rushed through the doorway and bounced off the ladder. It squealed and kicked its stubby legs until it caught one hoof on the ladder. The hoof stuck, and the creature—the pig—jumped after the cat.

The sight of the pig was so surreal, it left Kira flabbergasted. As always, life continued to surprise her with the depths of its weirdness.

The cat landed at the other end of the room and promptly sprang away through another open doorway. A moment later, the pig followed suit.

“What was that? ” Kira said, finding her voice.

“That’s our ship pig, Runcible. ”

“Your ship pig. ”

“Yup. We put some gecko pads on his hooves so he can move around in free fall. ”

“But why a ship pig?! ”

“’Cause that way we can always bring home the bacon. ” Trig cackled, and Kira winced. Eighty-eight days in FTL just to be subjected to bad puns? Where was the justice in that?

Gregorovich’s watery voice sounded above them, again the voice of an uncertain god: “Prepare for resumption of thrust in one minute and twenty-four seconds. ”

“So what makes your ship mind so special? ” Kira asked.

Trig shrugged. It was an odd motion in free fall. “He’s really, really big. ” He eyed her. “Big enough for a capital ship. ”

“How’d you manage that? ” she said. From what she’d seen of the Wallfish, no mind with more than two or three years of growth should have wanted to serve on board.

“We rescued him. ”

“You rescued—”

“He was installed on an ore freighter. The company was mining iridium out around Cygni B, then hauling it back here. A meteoroid hit the freighter, and it crashed on one of the moons. ”

“Ouch. ”

“Yeah. And the crash knocked out the comms, so there was no way to signal for help. ”

The alert sounded again, and Kira’s feet settled back on the metal decking as her weight returned. Once more she marveled at how well her muscles worked after so long in zero-g.

“So? ” she said, frowning. “The freighter’s thermal signature should have been easy enough to spot. ”

“Should have, ” said Trig, and started to climb down the ladder. “Problem was, the moon is volcanic. All the background heat hid the ship. The company thought it was destroyed. ”

“Shit, ” said Kira, following him.

“Yeah. ”

“How long were they stranded there? ” she asked, as they arrived at the bottom of the shaft.

“Over five years. ”

“Wow. That’s a long time to be stuck in cryo. ”

Trig halted and stared at her with a serious expression. “They weren’t. The ship was too damaged. All the cryo tubes were broken. ”

“Thule. ” Her own trip had been brutally long. Kira couldn’t even imagine five years of it. “What happened to the crew? ”

“Died in the crash or starved to death. ”

“And Gregorovich couldn’t go into cryo either? ”

“Nope. ”

“So he was alone for most of that time? ”

Trig nodded. “He might have been there for decades if we hadn’t spotted the crash. It was pure chance; we just happened to look at the screens at the right moment. Up until then, we didn’t even have a ship mind. Just a pseudo-intelligence. Wasn’t that good, either. The captain had Gregorovich transferred over and that was that. ”

“You just kept him? What did he have to say about it? ”

“Not much. ” Trig stopped her with a look before she could object further. “I just mean he wasn’t very conversational-like, you know? Sheesh. We’re not stupid enough to fly with a mind that doesn’t want to be with us. What do you think, we have a death wish? ”

“The mining company didn’t have a problem with that? ”

They filed out of the central shaft and down another anonymous corridor.

“Wasn’t up to ’em, ” said Trig. “They’d already terminated Gregorovich’s contract, listed him as dead, so he was free to sign onto any ship he wanted. ’Sides, even if they tried to get him back, Gregorovich didn’t want to leave the Wallfish. He wouldn’t even let the techs pull him for a proper medscan back at Stewart’s World. I think he didn’t want to be alone again. ”

That Kira understood. Minds were human (barely), but they were so much bigger than ordinary brains, they needed stimulation in order to keep from going completely insane. For a mind to be trapped by itself for five years … She wondered how safe she really was on the Wallfish.

Trig stopped by a set of large pressure doors, one on each side of the corridor. “Wait here. ” He opened the leftmost door and slipped inside. Kira briefly saw a large cargo hold with racks of equipment and a short, blond-haired woman wrapping padding around large sections of consoles that looked suspiciously like the ones from the Valkyrie. Next to her, on the deck, was a pile of UMC blasters. …

Kira frowned. Had the crew of the Wallfish stripped the shuttle? Somehow she doubted that was entirely legal.

“None of my business, ” she murmured.

Trig returned carrying a blanket, a set of gecko pads, and a shrink-wrapped ration pack. “Here, ” he said, handing them over. “Control and engineering are off-limits ’less one of us is with you or the captain gives you permission. ” He jerked his thumb toward the room he’d just exited. “Same for the port hold. You’re in the starboard. Chemical toilets are at the back. Find a spot wherever you can. Think you can handle yourself from here? ”

“I think so. ”

“’K. I gotta get back up to Control. If there’s a problem, just ask Gregorovich and he’ll let us know. ”

Then the kid hurried off back the way they’d come.

Kira took a breath and then pulled open the door to the starboard cargo hold.

CHAPTER II

WALLFISH

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