6 Eamis 1117: Jumpspace
I had spent most of yesterday on the bridge. Things were tense everywhere, and I didn’t want to deal with it any more than I had to.
I did some research on Mupikaa. It was an anomaly, a class A starport in a system unaligned with any polity and with a relatively small population and economy. I assumed that most of its trade was probably “under the console,” a starport where smugglers could sanitize “questionable” cargoes and make them look legitimate. Or for those few captains desperate enough to try to be pirates.
The main problem we would have there would be dealing with the paperwork. A sizable fraction of their population was employed by their governmental bureaucracy. Almost every transaction required an appropriate filing and fee, including things as simple as ordering a drink or buying a meal. Fortunately, they had relegated most of that to their local network. Our individual idents and comps would handle it, but I had to fill out the forms for all crew and passengers before landing. So I took the time to do that.
Then I checked my pings. I had a few from passengers Kramon and Vitriman. Ms. Ceana and the Lemmis were apparently keeping to themselves. I also had one from Varan.
Kane had said that he wanted to leave the Grayswandir, and he hadn’t denied it. No one else has commented on it since then. Maybe they hadn’t heard what she had said; it had been a pretty tense meeting. But I suspected that no one wanted to talk about it.
More than anything else, that was the Bandersnatch in the compartment. I sighed.
I grabbed my Captain’s Jacket and put it on. And I stuck my snub pistol under it. Maybe I was being paranoid, but he had been pointing a gun at me.
Better to be safe.
—-
After a quick check of the Grayswandir‘s systems, I went to the crew lounge and had Gray open the door to Varan’s cabin. After a few moments, he stepped into the doorway.
“What the hells do you want?”
“You keep saying that you want to talk to me.”
“Yeah, let me know in advance next time.
“Oh? Just like you did such a good job of letting me know that you and your port girl would be pulling guns and pointing them at crew and passengers?”
“Hey, you know…”
“I don’t know a damn thing. Now, do you want to talk? Let’s talk. If not? Get back in your cabin.”
He glanced behind him, then nodded. “Yeah, sure.” He entered the lounge.
“Gray? Seal Varan’s cabin again.” He turned as the door behind him slid shut, then turned to me.
“Cargo bay?”
I nodded.
—-
He led the way to the bulkhead, opened the compartment, and pulled out the bottle and glasses. He filled one, drained it, then refilled it before walking back to where I was. He sat back against a cargo container and placed the bottle and remaining glass in front of him.
I sat down, took the bottle and glass, filled it, and then returned it. I took a sip, then had to fight a cough. I don’t know where he had gotten this, but it wasn’t a fabricated pattern. At least, not one that would have ever been approved.
“You could have talked to me,” I said, taking another sip. “Instead of pointing a gun at me.”
“Yeah? You’ve made plenty of plans behind our backs.”
“Nothing that I haven’t revealed at the crew meeting. Which I would have if you hadn’t brought someone with you.”
“Hey! I’m not the only one who has done that!”
“I’ve also talked to Shelly. So… why are you so upset about this?”
“That’s… none of your business.”
“Hey, just asking.” He reached out for the bottle, but I moved it out of his reach.
“Oh, for rut’s sake, what are you doing?”
“You can drink as much as you want to avoid Ms. Kane, but I need to know what all this is about. Are you really wanting to leave the Grayswandir?”
“Let me get another drink, OK? You think I’m happy about this?”
I hesitated, then handed him the bottle. He refilled his glass. I reached back for it, but he tucked it behind where he was sitting. I sighed.
“So, what is this about?”
“I can’t do this!,” he said with surprising anger. “I can’t do this. I don’t want to be one of the ‘chosen ones.’ I don’t want to be trying to ‘uphold the principles of the Imperium’ or whatever you think is going on. I want to go to new places and fuck new people, OK? And you used to be fine with that! But now?” He gestured around. “We’re carrying escaped prisoners! We’re smuggling for various factions. We’re actively drawing attention to ourselves! And I don’t want to have sophonts paying attention to me!”
I sighed. “Except we aren’t carrying escaped prisoners. They aren’t here, no matter what you or your down-girl seem to think. Hells, I’m not that stupid. TliSec knew we were worried about them; we would be the first ship they checked!”
“That doesn’t matter!” He stood up, standing over me. “I don’t give a rut about them. OK? We never cared about any of our passengers before! We dropped them off, then you and I went into town to find a couple of willing sophonts to spend our downtime with. We didn’t care about anything!”
He stepped back and leaned against the container. “Then… you were our Captain. And we’re suddenly involved in all kinds of things. Assassinations, changing governments, carrying illegal cargo, transporting rutting escaped prisoners! How the hells did we suddenly get to this point!”
He sighed as he slid back into a sitting position. “I… couldn’t take it anymore. I was telling Evel about what had been happening. OK, I was crying on her shoulder. But… she listened to me. Unlike you.”
“Hey! I have tried…”
“Yeah, you listened to me, then did your own thing anyway. You said we would be trying to keep a lower profile, then we’re suddenly arranging a jailbreak? How is that ‘Keeping a low profile?'”
“You know my reasoning for that.”
“You never asked me! Or anyone on the crew if we wanted to be involved in your schemes!”
I sighed. “I invited you to the meeting where this was planned!”
“Yeah! At the last minute! Then you vanished, along with Saahna! You left all of us to deal with TliSec without input! How do you expect us to react!”
“If you want to be involved, show up when I contact you. And don’t bring along random people to what is supposed to be a crew meeting.”
“If we aren’t doing anything illegal, why do you care who shows up at a meeting?”
“Because I don’t want to share all of my plans with any random sophont who happens to be in the area!” I drained my glass, choked back the cough, then extended a hand. “Give me that!”
He hesitated, then passed the bottle to me. After a second of thought, I filled my glass and placed it on the floor between us.
“So…” I said as I took another sip. “Are you really planning to leave at Mupikaa?”
He hesitated, then looked away. “Like I said, I can’t do this.”
“How does Ms. Kane fit into that?”
He waved a hand. “From what she told me, she’s been fucking random ship crewmembers for a long time. She’ll deal with it.”
“Will she?”
“Oh, come on. How many starport boys or girls have you been with?”
“None who wanted to follow me out-system Or who I encouraged to follow me. And never anyone willing to abandon their entire history to follow me. You need to talk to her.”
“She was only interested in getting her payout!”
“Are you sure? She seemed genuine when she talked to us a few days ago.
He was shaking his head. “No… she just wanted…”
“To be with you,” I said flatly.
“What? No. She needed to be on board to tell her contact who was with us. She’ll find someone else to be with as soon as…”
“No. She’s being hunted now. Just like you. Just like all of us. And you got her into this. You didn’t have to bring her on board, but you did. So, now, it’s your problem.”
“Hey, she should have known what she was getting into.”
I closed my eyes, looked down, then opened them and looked back. “Maybe? But it doesn’t seem like she did.”
“What? No… As I said, she’s been with…”
“Any number of random ship’s crews, you said. Yes, she has. But there is always that moment when you suddenly meet someone you connect with. Then… things get more complicated.”
“Oh, come on! This is what you have gotten us into! It isn’t me!”
I shook my head. “You know that isn’t true. And I know I told you how to identify those who were just interested in a few-days fling and those who wanted to be Travellers. And yes, I’ve missed a few of those myself. But… you have to recognize it when it happens. But that’s your problem, not mine.”
“Hey!” He tried to stand up but staggered and fell back to the deck. “I’m your friend! You can’t talk to me that way.”
“A ‘friend’ who pointed a gun at me two days ago. Do you think I’ve forgotten that? As well as your current partner! Only the fact that you are my ‘friend’ has kept both of you out of the airlock.”
“What!” That seemed to anger him more than anything that had happened so far. “You can’t just forget…”
“You did!” I snapped, interrupting him. “I supported you again and again. Even when you were harassing other members of the crew. Even when they were threatening to leave if I kept you around. And I kept making excuses for you. And then, after I did all of that for you… after all that…” I realized that I was crying. “And then you pulled a rutting gun on me! And your current fuck-friend! And, somehow, you think we can go back from this!”
“You can’t put this on me!” he shouted. “I’ve been telling you for weeks! Months! I don’t want anything to do with this secret, ‘special ship’ biowaste! We used to carry cargo and passengers every Jump, and then we’d party all week in system! Why the hells did you have to decide to get involved in everything!”
“Because I didn’t have a choice! Ever since Fugitak, we’ve been involved whether we wanted to be or not. We can either jump off or hang on and ride! I thought about it but decided to hang on!”
“And you didn’t think about how those decisions would affect us!”
“We aren’t a Corp. All of you know that you can leave any time you want. I’m the Captain! You can follow what I’m doing or find another ship. It’s that simple. Hey, I understand you’ve already found one! Though I’ll give you one piece of advice, I wouldn’t trust them to get you to the next system. But hey, you do what you want.”
“Yeah.” He waved a hand in dismissal as he refilled his glass, then ignored it to take a drink directly from the bottle.
“Look,” he said as he finally lowered his head to look at me again. “Do you know what your rutting problem is?”
“Tell me,” I said with a tight smile.
“You’re a rutting Nobel. Yeah, I looked up Keystone on the computer after you suddenly changed your social standing the other day. Didn’t you think that any of us wouldn’t notice that? Well, someone had already downloaded that data before our last Jump, so I guess you’ve been talking to someone, even if it wasn’t me!” He took another drink.
“It doesn’t take much to realize that the guy in charge of the place just happens to have the same last name as you! So yeah, you’re used to not caring about what us mundanes think…”
“I left Keystone,” I said flatly. “And I gave up my title when I did. I would have stayed if I had wanted that kind of authority or responsibility.”
“Yeah! But you still expect it, right?” He took another drink. “What was it like for you there? Really? Did the instructors pass you anyway to avoid problems if you did badly in a class? Did they just agree to go out with you to avoid problems when you asked someone out? I saw how the Imperium dealt with ‘problems.’ Apparently, your family had no hesitation in using similar methods until your father suddenly decided he needed to be ‘official.’ So… how were things for you?”
I grimaced. “I left all that behind me. I could have…”
“Could have what! Continued to rut any number of your local population? Just the women; I know you have that weird hangup.”
“No. I never did that! So just shut the rut up!”
“Yeah, sure you didn’t! That’s not what Shelly said.”
“I. Never. Touched. Shelly.”
He laughed. “Yeah, right.” He took another drink. “Yeah, I don’t blame you. I fucked her as soon as I got a chance.”
I was fighting down anger. “And she resents that. So you need to stay away from her. Completely.”
“Why? What are you going to do? Kick me off the ship?”
“Aren’t you planning to leave us at Mupikaa anyway? That’s what your girlfriend said!”
“That’s what I told Evel. I decided to ditch her there. What difference does it make?”
“Oh, rut you!” I stood up. “We had the opportunity to help someone. To make a difference! We saved the Stetons from a fairly horrible death! And you’re mad at me. Don’t you give a rut about anyone other than you!”
“Yeah, and now we’ve got the rutting Solomani trying to kill us!” He staggered to his feet, waved the bottle at me, then sagged back to the deck. “We’re all going to get killed like Vargr in the streets because of you!”
I glared. “No. We aren’t. We’ll be fine. And you will, too, as long as you get somewhere else.”
“What?”
“You better hope that Ms. Kane’s contact is good. Take it and get off of Mupikaa as fast as you can. You’ll have to be nice to her for a while more. Deal with it.” I started walking toward the iris.
“Hey? Hey!” He staggered to his feet again. “What happens if I just tell the Sols everything, huh? I won’t lie to them. What happens to you!”
I paused, then turned back to him. “Nothing, actually. And I will advise everyone on board to tell them everything they know.” I have been thinking about this. “Someone on Girar overreacted, and then someone else on Gashuumi overreacted even more, to cover up that first overreaction. But now? Anything they do to any of us adds credibility to what they are trying to hide. So the fact that we know what they don’t want known means they can’t do anything to us without confirming what we are saying is true. So… don’t worry about it.” I turned back to the iris.
“Oh, rut you!” he shouted from behind me.
“Yeah, but I’m ‘weird,’ remember?” He shouted more, but I ignored it as I waited for the iris to cycle, then ducked into the crew lounge.
—-
Saahna and Jami were there, playing some game on the holo. They both looked up as I entered. I kept walking. I glanced at the dispenser and hesitated, then continued onto the bridge.
It was silent; even Do’rex was apparently in his cabin. I climbed into the Captain’s chair and pulled up the consoles.
I first did double-check that I had removed all access from Varan. Once he left the cargo bay, he would be confined to the crew lounge and his cabin, and once he entered it, he would no longer have access to anything else. I also ordered Gray to monitor him.
Gods, how did I miss all of this. I’m better than this. How was I so blind?
I had been there for a few minutes when I heard the bridge iris cycle. Someone entered, got as far as my seat, and apparently just stood there.
I kept my eyes closed for at least a half minute, then opened them and looked down. Saahna was there, holding a beer up to me.
I hesitated, then took it from her. She nodded, then ducked under the seat and continued to her console. She sat down, then spun the seat to look at me.
“Talking to me again?”
She avoided an answer with a question of her own. “Are you OK?”
“Not really.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Not really.”
“You need to.”
“Yeah.”
“So… talk.”
“You were the one angry with me yesterday.”
She sighed. “Yeah. I’m sorry. Yesterday was… bad. Actually, the last few days have been bad. You aren’t the only one feeling the pressure.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me yet. We still need to talk. So again… talk.”
I sighed.
“Have I really been that bad of a Captain?”
She shrugged. “Well, things haven’t been boring since you took over.”
I swallowed. “So, you disagree with anything I have done?”
“You have… always done what you thought was right. Even if it seems to hurt us at first. But…” she looked away and sighed. “Yeah… You’ve always done what seems to be the right thing.”
“I’m… trying.”
“Yeah.” She paused, looking at me. “So… what happened?”
“Varan was trying to ‘teach me a lesson.’.”
“Bringing someone on board who almost shot you? That’s a hells of a lesson.”
“Tell me about it.”
“You could have been killed.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“And he pointed a gun at you too.”
I sighed. “I… don’t think he realized that things would go that far.”
There was a pause. “You need to stop making excuses for him.”
“I’m not.” I took another drink. “I’ve already revoked his crew status and told him to find another ship at Mupikaa. He’s still in denial himself, but… I can’t trust him anymore.”
“That’s… probably for the best.” She sighed. “Look… things have changed. Things are going to get worse. And we can decide what we will do about them and what part we will play in them. Yeah, I thought the Doctor was crazy for a long time. I thought she was exaggerating. Then…” She paused again.
“Then I saw what was happening at Gashuumi. I saw people threatening us just because we were trying to help someone. And I remembered talking to Cavor back at Boilingbrook.”
She paused again. “This is real, isn’t it. The Imperium isn’t going to survive this, is it?”
“It will survive,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “But… yeah. Things are going to be bad for a while. Someone will eventually gain enough power to pull all of the sectors back together again, but right now? It’s falling apart.”
“We are stuck in a position where we can try to support the worlds that would otherwise be cut off or go back to safety.”
“Yeah.”
“And you don’t want to run back to safety.”
I suddenly saw my father looking at me again. “No. We can’t.”
“Why?”
“Nobliis Oblige.”
“What?” She shook her head. “You’ve said that before. I still don’t know what you mean.”
“Nobilis Oblige. It’s in an ancient Terran language. It means ‘Nobility Obligates.’ Yeah, I had a pretty good life on Keystone. Things were easier for me than they would have been for most of the local sophonts, but that was because I was the child of a Count. That’s… one of the reasons Varan is angry with me.”
I shook my head. “But, we… well, I was always taught that there was a price to pay for that. As nobles, we were obligated to help the sophonts we were responsible for. Well, I would have been. My father tried to take care of the sophonts on Keystone, and the Imperium took his life for it. I guess he tried to help the wrong people.”
She nodded. “You told me that earlier.”
“Yeah, but I understand it more now. More than the Imperium does.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look, Dulinor thought that the Imperium should be doing more to take care of the systems under its control. But the Imperium only cares about any system as far as they can profit from them. That’s what started this war. And most of the sophonts trying to ‘restore the Imperium’ are trying to re-create it under the same rules. Just with them in charge.
“They forgot that Noblis Oblige.”
“Wait, you think Dulinor was right!”
“He was thinking in the right direction but didn’t think far enough.” She started to say something, but I held up a hand. “He could have continued to help the sophonts in Illesh. Or maybe he tried and got resistance from the Megacorp interests that run the Moot. It’s a lot harder to send the Navy after an Archduke than it is a Count.”
“Yeah, but… How did he think that assassinating the best Emperor we’ve had in a century or more would help!”
“That I don’t know. Maybe he was just so frustrated that he thought that was his only option. Maybe he thought that he would have more popular support than he did. I don’t know. But he didn’t do himself, his cause, or anyone else any favors.”
She continued to look at me. “Well, right or wrong, we better hope that Lucan finishes him off quickly, gets back to Capitol, and gets things back under control.”
“How!” I flared. The anger from earlier was returning. I twisted the top off the bottle and took a long drink.
“Even if he has already finished off Dulinor and is on his way back to Capitol, what will he do when he gets there? The Moot has chosen Margaret, and he disbanded them. So he has no Moot and another rival with a legitimate claim to the Throne. Does he start a second war with her?
“And what about places like the Old Expanses? He’s pulled out of there and burned a lot of bridges behind him. The Sols are already moving in. No matter who winds up ‘winning’ between Lucan and Margaret, are we looking at another Solomani RIm War?
“And we have yet to learn what has been going on elsewhere. What will the Zho do over in the Marches when they hear about the assassination if they haven’t already? Or the Aslan? Or even the Julian Protectorate? We haven’t heard anything from those places, but they will react somehow.”
“So… what do we do?” I could tell she was still dubious.
“We take care of ourselves. And we try to take care of the worlds we visit. If we do it right, we’ll get a reputation as a ship that can be trusted. And I think that ‘trust’ will be a precious commodity in the next few years.”
“Assuming that the Sols don’t kill us first.”
“They won’t,” I repeated what I had told Varan. “The best way to confirm a rumor is to kill the people telling it.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I hope I am too.”
She hesitated. “Varan may not be the only one leaving at Mupikaa.”
I let out a long sigh. “Yeah. I was expecting that.”
“It… isn’t me. I’m sorry about last night. Yeah, I was angry. Too much had happened too fast, and I couldn’t keep up. But… you did what you had to do. What we need to do. I’m… with you.”
“Thanks.” I felt myself relax. I needed Saahna far more than I could ever tell her. The fact that she was at least talking to me gave me hope.
She turned to her console again. “Do’rex will probably stay with the ship. He only cares about flying anyway. And I suspect Jami will as well.”
“And Shelly?”
“She has been unhappy that you’ve kept Varan around for the last few Jumps. And honestly, I can’t blame her.”
“Varan is leaving at Mupikaa.”
“Well, tell her that.”
“I’m not sure that she is listening to me anymore.”
“Then tell Do’rex. He is close to her and believes you. He may be able to convince her to stay.”
“Good. We need her netcasts to continue.”
“Why?”
“They will show that we are doing what we are saying we are doing. And the publicity will make others think a bit more before doing anything to us.
“I hope you are right.”
“Yeah. Me too, to be honest.”
She sighed, then slid her seat back. “I’ll unlock the cabin. Come visit later, OK? Hopefully not drunk?”
“Yeah, I’ll try.” I looked at my console. Varan was still in the Cargo Bay, and sensors showed that he was unconscious. “But I need to get someone back to their cabin right now.”
She frowned but nodded. “Yeah. See you later.” She ducked under the seat and left.
I ordered a few utility bots to get Varan back to his cabin and put him in his bunk. I thought of other things I should be doing, but there wasn’t much I could do at the moment that couldn’t wait a day or two. I tilted the seat back and tried to relax.
How had things come to this?