Branegate (30 page)

It was not a place Leonid and Tatjana would ever have visited on their own. The first week they remained in the ship. Sparrow moved as close as he could to the Grand Portal, hovering at the edge of the shipping lane. At this distance the other side was only a hazy, black patch, but freighters could be seen moving back and forth in the chaos of reds, yellows and greens that marked the interaction of normal space and particles within the exotic composition of the brane.

No invasion fleet was there to be seen. Sparrow set up a kind of disguise for them, making darting runs between The Palace and the four, planet-sized keeper ships distorting space in gentle folds around masses of a dozen suns. The folds were there to aid the stability of a giant rip in the brane between two universes, a rip created by focused vacuum energy from a ring of eight moon-sized generators placed on each side of the brane. The generators were barely visible in the glow of the portal, each operated by remote control and sending beams of exotic particles to form the cusp of the transition space. A single station controlled the generators, with a crew of fifty men, and security was high. A police picket served as taxi to and from, and only for authorized personnel, but crews had downtime, and often spent it at The Palace. There, they talked freely, as did keeper and freighter crews, for nothing more than a drink, a woman, perhaps a coin or two. They knew about anything making transit, or scheduled to: origin, destination, cargo and crew. And they knew what was on the other side, all the way to the frontier.

After a week of darting around, and experiencing no response from the few picket ships on patrol outside the shipping lane, Sparrow docked at The Palace. He left Leonid and Tatjana on board and went off-ship with his crew. They waited anxiously, afraid police might arrive to check their papers, but their anxiety was wasted. This was The Palace, not a port. The only police here were off-duty, and focused on pleasures.

Sparrow returned with good news after only two hours. A freighter captain from the other side had seen the great fleet gathered there, had counted forty-three ships. The fleet had grown by eleven over the past few months. Still assembling. And the number of picket ships near the portal exit on the other side was also increasing, with more boarding and inspections of ships passing through. Complaints had been filed with port authorities, but there had been no response.

“At least they’re still there,” said Leonid, then, “The only way to stop them is to shut down the portal. They could move any day. We’re in a race. I have to tell Anton.”

But Anton didn’t seem concerned, said there were other ways to stop the ships, ways he would test in the near future. “Hold tight,” he said. “We should have all of this resolved in a year. Those ships aren’t our only concern here, so be patient. I’ll try hard to join you soon.”

Again there was the feeling that someone else had been there with Anton, a strong presence less subtle each time they contacted him. Tatjana suggested they relax a bit, create that favorite place in their collective minds again and invite the new presence to join them there. But it seemed now that Anton was always in a rush; their contacts without visions, information transfer the only goal. There was no time to do what Tatjana wanted. She was patient, but determined to have her way.

They finally left the ship to hear firsthand what Sparrow and his crew were hearing. Leonid wore rough-woven clothing and sported a two-week-old beard. Tatjana was harder to dress for the occasion. Leonid courted retaliation by jokingly suggesting she wear something brief and sexy, and print up some business cards. She settled for trimming her hair short and wearing a heavy, oversized cap with loose clothing to make her look like a young apprentice merchantman.

The thing that bothered them the most was the noise, from the instant they came through the airlock. The rhythmic pounding of a drumbeat came all the way down the access tunnel to their entrance. An explosion of sound and bright lights, and they were in the street, and even here, along a long line of numbered access ports, people were jostling together. The Palace district started a hundred yards along the rim of the wheel, an archway of flashing lights welcoming them. After months of tenth-gee in their ships, three-tenths made them feel heavy, but within an hour their muscles had responded favorably for simple standing and walking. The sound was deafening, in waves, drumbeats and loud music coming from speakers over the entrances to clubs and bars, hawkers shouting through loudspeakers in front of shops and brothels. Flashing lights were everywhere, and there was the talking and shouts from the crowd itself, so thick that walking was more diffusion than travel, random progress as people banged into each other like particles of smoke in air.

Twenty minutes after arrival, Tatjana was propositioned by a prostitute for the first, but not last, time. The woman was attractive and tall, her makeup so thick it was a plastic mask. She bumped into Tatjana, put an arm around her, and handed her a card.

“I do women too, sweetie,” she shouted into her ear.

Tatjana flushed beet red. “I beg your pardon?”

The woman leaned close again. “I can smell you, dear.”

Seeing no interest there, the woman pushed herself away into the jostling crowd. And Leonid looked at Tatjana strangely, wondering why she was blushing so.

She never told him why.

There were several key bars frequented by the merchantmen. No dance floors, piped music, a few rooms on a balcony where the ladies did their work. Drinks were cheap, but watered thin. A man went there to catch up on news with his friends. There would be time for other pleasures later.

Sparrow had prearranged it. They went to ‘Purple Rooster,’ a place in the noisiest strip along the lower doughnut favored by working crew. They sat down at a table with Sparrow. An ancient waiter ready for reincarnation served them whisky-flavored water and a dish of salty nuts. They sipped slowly. Sparrow watched the crowd, stood up suddenly and beckoned to a man who’d just come into the bar. Gaunt and tall, he wore the form-fitting jacket of a merchant officer. He came to their table, sat down, and shook hands with Sparrow.

They were introduced as Leo and Tati, Sparrow’s number one and a cabin steward. The man was Saul Briggs, second mate of Alterra, a Class A freighter registered in Port Angel, but running goods from Kratola to the frontier.

“Theo’s an old friend,” said Sparrow. “We shipped out together when we still had fuzz on our cheeks.”

“Three lifetimes ago, it was,” said Saul, and downed his drink in a gulp. Sparrow poured another for him. “Course I had one shortened a bit.”

“Explosive decompression it was,” said Sparrow. “Good thing the company had you archived.”

“Bad days for the company. They’ll do anything for freight, and I don’t like it, Ben. That’s what I wanted to tell you about.”

“Have at it,” said Ben Sparrow.

“Things ain’t so good on the other side. A lot of industries left when the Bishops took over, abandoned stock, factories, everything. Nobody has taken over. Don’t want to work for the Bishops, or don’t know how to do anything. The economy is going down fast. People with money are trying to leave, but they’re stopped at Port Angel. They have to give up everything they have to the Bishops to get over here, and then they can never go back.”

“I have people on Kratola. They told me times were hard,” said Leonid.

“Worse’n that. Pretty soon only poor people’ll be there. Anyway, word is the Bishops want to take it all back, all the people who’ve left, the worlds they’ve settled, the fortunes they’ve made. The Bishops say the colonists have strayed from The Church. And they’re gonna make transit soon to bring them back into the fold.”

“That lie is so foul it smells,” said Leonid. “The colonists voted in their own independence a long time ago, and owe no taxes or allegiance to Kratola. A lot of people there don’t even know that planet exists, except in legend. This is all about power and money, and growing competition every time one of our ships crosses the brane.”

“Coming through earlier last year, I saw a lot of ships on the other side. Looked like a military fleet,” said Sparrow.

“That it is, but not like you think,” said Saul. “They’re all just freighters, all sizes up to mine, and unarmed. But inside they’re loaded with military aircraft, armored vehicles and personnel. Must be forty or fifty thousand men.”

Sparrow looked at Leonid. “Enough to take over any colony world, one at a time.”

“I didn’t include Alterra,” said Saul. “Military vehicles out to the hull, and five hundred so-called ‘civilian’ passengers, all of them chisleheads if I ever saw one. We weren’t boarded or checked on the other side or here. A lot of people are in on it. Word is the fleet is coming through within a month. Us and a couple of others have already come through, just to be sure the bribes are working. It all stinks. Don’t the colonies have any defenses?”

“Not really,” said Leonid. “They’re too busy squabbling among themselves to get together on anything.”

“Then The Church will do it for them. They’re sure of themselves. None of this is a secret here. I doubt I’d be in any trouble for talking about it. And people here just don’t care one way or the other. Bud here said y’all have family in the colonies, and are headed there. Maybe you can give’em some warning.”

“One month wouldn’t be much,” said Leonid.

“Bud says you can make a few jumps a day. In Alterra and all the other class A’s it’s only two, with all that cargo. If you hammer it all the way back you could be years ahead of the big fleet.”

“And do what?”

“Get them ready to fight, or run away,” said Sparrow. “We should leave now.”

“But the fleet might not even make transit.”

“They’re coming through. Believe me,” said Saul. “I’d go with you if I could.”

Sparrow glanced at Tatjana, who was biting her lip to remain quiet like a good little cabin boy. “All right, we’ll wait until we see first signs of movement by the fleet, and then we’re gone. Saul, what can I say but thanks. At least we know what’s going on. You’re a friend.”

Saul took a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Sparrow. “You can thank me by looking up these folks. They settled on a planet called Elderon.”

Sparrow studied the paper. “Your parents?”

“No—wife, and two of my kids, a lifetime ago, it was. Couldn’t stand me being shipped out all the time. If you find’em, tell’em I’m okay, that I think about them a lot, that I’m ready to settle down.”

“Everyone is archived on Elderon. Should be easy to do,” said Leonid.

“Yeah. I didn’t think you were a merchantman,” said Saul, “and that ain’t no cabin boy. Too pretty for that.” He smiled at Sparrow.

“I work for a very important, very powerful lady, Saul. She’s headed to the colonies right now, with most of her family, and these are two of them.”

“I don’t need names,” said Saul.

“If you ever get to Elderon, check in at the archives’ center. We’ll find you,” said Leonid.

Saul nodded, picked up his glass, and lifted it in a toast.

“Here’s to another lifetime,” he said.

They drank.

After the meeting with Saul, they returned to The Palace once a week themselves, at least one of the crew on leave four days a week and keeping eyes and ears open for news. Leonid had expected to wait months for something to happen, but instead it was weeks, only a few days after Saul had shipped out on Alterra. His ship wasn’t even up to cruising speed when they got the news.

Nate and Jake came back from an evening of physical fulfillment at one of the brothels. A fitter there had been complaining about the long delays at getting through the portal. Everything was being held up by the passage of a huge fleet of ships now lining up on the other side. No other traffic was being allowed until the fleet came through, and that would be at least two days of paperwork because there were fifty ships to process.

Captain Sparrow had them underway in four hours, and they had already made two jumps by the end of ship’s cycle, leaving Saul’s vessel far behind.

CHAPTER 32

I
t was an unusual looking ship, but not as strange as the one beyond it in a slightly higher orbit. That one was still under construction, and resembled a fish that had swallowed something huge. It would not be tested today.

The shuttle came in slowly, and their pilot took them over the top and around both sides to view the hull from all angles. Trae’s first impression was of a military stealth vessel: black, vee-shaped, but with the characteristic ellipsoidal bulge aft for a superconducting torus of uncountable layers to power the jumps. Not a large ship by commercial standards, about a thousand feet long. Lots of angles on the hull for stealth, and a thick polymer coat, the test ship was designed for use only in space. Its partner, now in orbit on the other side of Elderon, sported a surface of ceramic tiles, and could be used surface to vacuum.

The shuttle docked forward. Trae and Myra crawled through the three-foot access tunnel and came out by the navigator’s harness, just behind the cockpit. Pilot and co-pilot were already seated and going through pre-flight check. The navigator barely noticed them. All men were in a second lifetime of service to Zylak Industries, but none of them knew Trae’s identity, only that he and Myra were test engineers on board for consultation and evaluation.

Aft of the cockpit was the engineer’s compartment, lit up like a festival tree by the monitoring instruments there, everything from speed, outside and inside temperatures, plenum pressure and coil amperage, to a breakdown of the individual currents of exotic particles being drawn from the false vacuum of space. A single gauge showed the temperature of the superconducting coil only a few hundred feet from their position. Powered by weakly coupled electron pairs, the particles would decouple and move independently if the temperature went higher than a warm oven. The superconductor would then become a normal conductor, and with the billions of amps flowing through it they would be vaporized in an instant.

The engineer was seated at his console. Trae and Myra buckled into seats that would normally be occupied by maintenance astronauts, their suits hanging from a wall behind them. They put on their headsets and riffled through the list of tests they’d come to observe. Trae had added a new one only minutes before. The crew wouldn’t like it, but they were at his command. He hoped to remain unobtrusive until that final test.