Crossways (62 page)

Cara fingers a plate by an empty flight suit nook. “The last time they had a flight suit inspection was seven years ago.”

“Ah.” Disappointment is evident in Ben's voice. “I wonder what went wrong?”

“Maybe we could ask our dragon friend if he shows up before our oxygen runs out.”

“You know, it could just be that if we believe there's oxygen, there will be.”

“It didn't work for them.” Cara opens the door to the flight deck to reveal three figures, two on the floor, and the third, in the pilot's seat, encased in a space suit for a coffin, two discarded oxygen tanks at his feet, serenely upright. A glance at the faceplate of his helmet instantly reveals that he is very, very dead. Cara shudders and tries not to look too closely at the unsuited bodies.

“Frozen,” Ben says. “By the state of them they asphyxiated before they froze. Still a slight blue tinge to the flesh and blood-black fingers.”

“Do you always assess corpses?”

“Sorry, old Monitor habits fade slowly. You couldn't always call a coroner and you learned to recognize signs of cyanosis. About half the bodies I had to deal with suffocated in the black. Accidents, mostly.”

*Three crew, all dead,
* Cara relays to
Solar Wind
.
*Looks like they sat here until they ran out of air. One of them suited up and used the oxygen tanks to give himself a few more hours. That must be the very definition of an optimist. The other two are corpsicles. Maybe been here six or seven years.*

“It's the
Bellatkin
.” Ben accesses the ship's systems, which come online at a touch. “No shipboard malfunction.” He leans over. “They were transiting the Folds on instruments. I guess they lost the line.”

Cara passes on the information.

*Harsh,*
Lowenbrun says.

*I've found the record,*
Hilde says.
*A Ramsay-Shorre ship carrying vac-packed coffee from Blue Mountain. Crew of three.*

*All accounted for,*
Ben says.
*We should try to bring her out of the Folds.*

*Salvage?*
Lowenbrun asks.

*I was thinking more along the lines of getting word to these guys' families.*

*That, too, but the ship is salvage, right? And the cargo?*

*Technically.*

With the suit on Cara can't see Ben's facial expression, but his back is stiff. His parents were lost in the Folds on a cruise ship. They might have ended up like the
Bellatkin
's crew. What is Ben thinking? She doesn't intrude to find out. He's all business as he checks out the ship's systems.

“Drive's fine, it's just life support that's been powered down. Maybe the last thing Suit Guy did. I wonder how long it took them to run out of food and air?”

Cargo ships don't have room for intensively planted biozones that provide both food and air. Apart from the hold, the ship is little more than a flight deck with a crew compartment, sleeping cubicles, sanitary facilities, and storage, including a cupboard which reveals the ship's doc-in-a-box, a diagnostic center still fully stocked with the kind of meds most likely to be needed by flight crews. Behind the box are three body bags.

“The medical profession usually buries its mistakes. That seems to apply to old doc-in-a-box, too,” Ben says through the helmet comm.

They bag the two exposed bodies and lay all three of them carefully on the bunks.

“I wonder if we've got them in the right bunks,” Cara says.

“I don't suppose they'll mind if we haven't.”

Cara checks her cuff readout. Three hours of suit air left.

*
Solar Wind
, can you estimate your arrival time?*
she asks.

*We're every place and no place at the same time, right?*
Lowenbrun said.

*That's about it,*
Ben replies.

*Then we should be there already.*

*Believe it.*

*Oh, I am. I'm believing it like crazy, but there you aren't.*

So as not to waste precious oxygen they sit quietly, shallow-breathing. Cara glances at her readout. Two hours of air left.

Ben looks up from the control console. “I can see the line out of here to the Crossways gate,” he says. “And the drive is functioning. Let's take the
Bellatkin
home. Connect to Lowenbrun.”

Cara does.

*Can you see the line to the Crossways gate?*
Ben asks.

*Yes.*

*Meet us at the other side and we'll transfer back to
Solar Wind
in realspace and take the
Bellatkin
in tow.*

*You want us to leave you in the Folds?*

*You can't find us, and we're running out of air, You need to get
Solar Wind
out. Who knows how much time has passed out there?*

*How much time?*
Max chipped in.
*Don't tell me I might be a father already?*

Ben doesn't answer.

*Seriously, how much time?*

*Let's just get out while we're still breathing and worry about that later,*
Ben says.

Cara straps in to make the transit through the Crossways gate. “How close can Lowenbrun get on the other side?” Cara asks.

Ben shrugs and checks his cuff readout. “Maybe not close enough.”

C
ROSSWAYS' GATE SPAT OUT THE
BELLATKIN
into realspace.

*Jake? Max? Hilde? Gwala?*
Cara had felt them all drop out of the gestalt as they crossed the gate horizon and now she'd lost them completely. It was as if
Solar Wind
didn't exist.

“I think they're still in the Folds,” she said on suit comms.

Ben swore softly. She didn't catch it all, but she heard Lowenbrun's name in there.

“Crossways Control to unknown vessel. Identify.”

“The ship's comm is still working,” Cara said, patching it into their suit vox. “Crossways Control, this is salvaged ship
Bellatkin
. Cara Carlinni and Ben Benjamin on board. We're suited up with less than two hours of air left. Appreciate two air tanks or we're going to be docking on fumes.”

They were still two hours out from Crossways.

“Well, well. I hope you're going to say pretty please. Tell Benjamin we'll trade him air tanks in exchange for the promise not to emerge from the Folds close enough to set off all our proximity alarms.”

“Quit teasing, Crossways Control, I promise,” Ben said. “Get your ass into gear.”

“Already on it, Benjamin. The Free Company has been alerted. There's a pilot scrambling right now.”

*Ben? Cara? We're on our way.*
Ronan's mental voice cut in.
*Yan and I are in the Dixie, full tanks prepped. Estimate intercept in one hour forty-two minutes. How much air have you got?*

Cara glanced at Ben and then at her own readout.
*One hour thirty-eight minutes.*

*How much in reserve?*

*That is the reserve. Step on it.*

*Conserve what you can.*

*Yeah.*

*You got all that?*
she asked Ben. At least they didn't have to use up extra oxygen to speak.

*I got it.*

*You're the better pilot. You need to be fit to dock with the Dixie. Let me fly the bus until then while you go into shutdown mode.*

It almost scared her that he didn't protest, but with the mental equivalent of a caress he almost immediately dropped into a meditative state that would hopefully use up less oxygen from already depleted supplies.

Cara minimized all necessary movements and concentrated only on keeping the
Bellatkin
on course. She tried not to think about running out of air, as that would only cause her to overbreathe and panic. She set the ship's alarm system to sound as soon as the Dixie came within ten klicks and settled back, watching her helm display count down to zero oxygen.

How long had she got after that?

Minutes.

How many minutes? Enough?

She hoped so.

With two minutes of oxygen left on her readout she nudged Ben and contacted Ronan.
*Estimated time to rendezvous?*

*Five minutes,*
Ronan said.

*Ben?*

*I've got four minutes left, how about you?*

*Two.*

*You can make it. Go into shutdown mode. Leave the rest to me. I love you.*

*I love you, too.*

She knew he'd share his last breath with her if she asked him to, but it didn't make sense. She closed her eyes and concentrated on taking the shallowest of breaths. Her head began to ache and she wanted to fall asleep. What would happen if she let herself drift into the arms of Morpheus? It wasn't such a bad way to die . . .

Her mother is standing over her. “Why did you let him do it?” she asks.

“Let who do what?”

“Your father. You knew he wasn't safe on that dam. Did he fall or jump?”

“They said it was an acci . . .”

Her grandfather is holding her close. “Breathe, child, it wasn't your fault.”

“But Mom said—”

“She doesn't blame you, Cara. In part she blames herself. He never got over the split.”

Prof Rimbaud looks up from his desk. “I expected better, Miss Carlinni. This paper is inadequate. Perhaps if you concentrated more on your studies and less on young men, you might achieve the grades you're capable of.”

She opens the envelope, knowing that if her grades aren't A or A+ across the board, she won't get the assignment that her heart is set on. “Yes!” Air punch! She's on the spearhead team.

Rydal is smiling down at her with a mug of coffee in his hand. Damn, that man makes good coffee. It's not the only thing he's good at.

“Don't!” She sees the doc seal the disposal bag over Rydal's face and tries to rise, but a crushing pain in her knee turns her word into a gasp. The doc comes over. “Rest, now, Carlinni. We've got this.” He peels her fingers back, pushes Rydal's handpad into them. There's no time or space to carry a corpse home. She hears the whomf and the sizzle as the bag's incendiaries reduce her lover to ash.

Ari scowls at her. “Craike handles severances,” he says, and she suddenly has an image of heads parted from bodies.

Ben's standing at the foot of the bed, his eyes smiling. “Are you getting up or do I have to come in there and get you?” She stretches out under the light airquilt. “Guess.”

“Cara! Cara!”

Who was that? She didn't want to wake up.

Her suit helmet was gone and there was a mask over her mouth and nose. Air! Never had anything tasted so sweet. She drew a deep breath and another. Ben's face came into focus, brown skin and concerned eyes over a clear mask. Then a space-suited Ronan, helmet still in place.

*All right?*
Ben asked.

*I will be. Doc Ronan to the rescue, again.*

*Wait until you get my bill.*
Ronan grinned behind the faceplate.

Cara enjoyed the fuss for a while, the instructions to take it easy while Ronan did half-hourly and then hourly checks. Ben was, as usual, a bad patient, shrugging off the attention and pacing the central office, cursing Jake Lowenbrun five ways from Wednesday until the
Solar Wind
popped out of the Crossways gate twelve hours later with Lowenbrun calling for the
Bellatkin
like a cow calling for her calf.

*Home safe, already,*
Cara told him.
*Where have you been?*

*We were right behind you.*

*We came through twelve hours ago.*

*Shit! I'm sorry. You're obviously all right, though. Benjamin?*

*Both fine.*

He docked
Solar Wind
like the pro that he was and stayed there until Ben relented and gave him permission to come to Blue Seven.

It had been four days for the
Solar Wind
, but closer to five weeks' elapsed time on Crossways, so Ben called a break. Gen and Max gained three days together. Gen's belly had expanded visibly, and after only three days she was reluctant to lose Max again, but relinquished him back to his duty with instructions not to take so long next time.

Wenna had everything under control in Blue Seven. There had been news from Nan that another two independent colonies were willing to ally with Crossways.

Ben was anxious to get back to the search. Cara was fully recovered and willing. Hilde and Gwala volunteered again, and Lowenbrun said if it was all the same to them could they please get back into the Folds or space him right now because he was not built for total sobriety.

“You really think we can do this, don't you?” Cara asked Ben as they boarded
Solar Wind
once again.

“I really do. I think there's one small thing we need to change in what we're doing.”

“What's that?”

“Take Max out to meet the void dragon.”

“Max? Outside?”

“Outside where?” Max caught up with them at the top of the ramp.

“Don't worry, we'll help you with it.”

“With what?”

Ben jerked his head toward the locker room. “Your space suit.”

“After what just happened to you two?”

“You're sure about this?” Max asked for the fourteenth time as Hilde checked his suit.

“Sure as I can be.” Ben would have told him not to worry, but he couldn't lie. It was dangerous, especially with someone inexperienced inside a suit for the first time. Max had barely learned how to use his buddysuit, let alone a full space suit. “We go outside, wait for the void dragon to show and ask again, but this time bring you into the mix with your line to the Kirchners.”

“And if this doesn't work?”

“Then I'm out of ideas. We admit defeat, go home, and get on with the rest of our lives.”

“And I'm off the hook?”

“Pretty much.”

Hilde clipped on the line that bound Max to Cara.

*Foldspace coming up,*
Lowenbrun broadcast from the flight deck.

“Hang on to something, Max,” Cara said, “And take care not to tangle the line.”

Max's reply was lost in the transition.

This time the lights don't just dip, they flicker out altogether and it takes Lowenbrun a couple of minutes to restore illumination. Hilde sets the air lock controls using her cuff-light while they wait.

“All right, children,” she says. “Take care out there.”

The air lock is big enough for two, but not three, so Ben goes through first, latches his line to the ship and waits, alone in the blackness, for Cara and Max to emerge together. He clips his line to theirs.

“Ahh,” Max says over the suit comm. “This is . . . unbefuckinglievable.”

“Breathe, Max,” Cara says. “Slow. Steady.”

“Yeah, breathe. Right.”

There's a swirling sensation. The big void dragon winks into existence, changes into a cow, back into a dragon and then into the
Bellatkin
, though this
Bellatkin
has an eye. Is that a wink?

“The big guy's here,” Ben says. He feels Cara link to him and pull Max into the mix.

“Is that the ark?” Max asks.

“It's the void dragon.”

“But it looks like—”

*I know what it looks like. Concentrate. Put the ark and the Kirchners uppermost in your mind.*

“Ark. Kirchners. Right,” Max mutters.

Ben picks up a fleeting impression of a middle-aged couple, unremarkable in their looks, but determined to do the right thing by their foster boys. It seems that Max understands them, in retrospect.

Ben touches the surface of the void dragon, smooth under his glove. The spaceship turns back into a dragon and Max loses it. “Holy shit!” He hits the suit's boosters and shoots away to the end of his tether, his momentum snatching Cara and Ben away from the void dragon.

“That thing . . .”

Max is spinning on the tether, tangling himself, drawing Cara into a knot. They collide and it sets her spinning, too. She curses and wraps her arms around Max, at least as far as her suit and his biopack will let her. Ben's tether is longer. He's dragged, but he avoids the spin and rights himself with a couple of short maneuvering bursts of propellant.