Erebus (23 page)

“Yes, but…” Frampton started.

“Don’t get excited. The technology might not even be replicable. Red Star hasn’t got a clue as to how it worked, just that it did.” Sihota tried, unsuccessfully, to bring him down a peg.

“Look,” said Frampton, gesturing at something in his HUD. I hadn’t bothered to slave mine to his. He was far more interested in raw data than in the general overview that I wanted, and his sparkling displays of graphs and numbers just confused me. “The basic principle is the same; it’s just half the components don’t seem to be there. The hardware is advanced, probably more so than ours, but we will be able to replicate it. It’s just a question of
when.
This isn’t magic; we only have to find the missing chunk.”

“Yes, an important chunk…the chunk that accounts for the FTL travel. Look, we are not scientists. It’s not our job to figure this thing out,” Vance responded testily. “We only need to find out why Frain has gone to great lengths to destroy something so valuable.”

I was idly flicking through the contents summary of the data file. As I did so, it occurred to me that people weren’t asking the right questions…There was one big glaring gap.

“Folks, this is all very interesting. Whoever built this thing is easily as advanced as we are,” I said. “So where the hell are they?”

Everyone just looked at me blankly. They were so caught up on the hardware, they had forgotten that basic question.

“They had a star-spanning society. The only thing that is left now is some damn pagoda on a moon that’s now in bits. Oh, and presumably some derelict station circling a black hole Lord-knows-how-many light-years away.”

“It might not be the only artifact,” Sihota replied after a moment’s thought. “Think about it. Frain took
Erebus
to a system that even backwater systems would call backwater. So why Sirius? There’s not much there.”

Sihota began tapping away on an invisible console that would be in his HUD. The lights in the mess dimmed, and a hologram of
Erebus’s
final approach to the gate arrays appeared floating above the mess table. We watched again as
Erebus
raced toward the gateways, turned front to back, and then decelerated hard yet carefully to ensure its antimatter torch didn’t destroy any of the thirty or so gateways floating in the Lagrange point.

“There, look. Frain could have easily entered Tau Ceti, in fact, more easily than Sirius.” We watched as the explorer ship slid into the shoal of gates, sweeping by several. “Delta Pavonis—another decent and easier target. Both have relatively high colonial populations for him to run to. There’s a couple more gates he passes, not as viable as bolt holes, but with a lot more in them than Sirius has. Instead, he’s gone to extra effort to enter that gate. Why?”

I pulled up the Sirius system on my HUD. It had various corporate and university interests within. It was apparently a fascinating place for science, but the only world that was even remotely habitable was an ice-covered rock, which by all reports, though beautiful, was not exactly an easy place to live. The system had only around five thousand people in a couple of dozen ships, stations, and one small settlement on that ice world. In terms of total population, the system measured about the same as a village.

“So you think these guys found something out there?” I asked.

“Well, he must have some reason for going there,” Sihota said with a shrug. “He didn’t just skip into the first gate that he could have.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Captain Vasily interrupted, entering the mess, “my orders have finally been signed off. Her owners aren’t exactly pleased, but I’ve been told they have come to an understanding with the treaty nations.
Gagarin
is to pursue
Erebus
.

About damn time.

“Layton, you don’t have to do this,” Giselle said earnestly, her face appearing in my HUD.

“Yeah, I do,” I said. “Look, I want to. I need to.”

“But sixteen years—assuming you even survive the experience,” she pressed.

Why the hell was I doing it? For Dev? Would he even have wanted me to go to these lengths? Was it to complete a job? I love my work but not enough to sacrifice sixteen years. I suspected it was as much about fulfilling that pervasive childhood fantasy of being a star traveler as anything else.

”Hell, Giselle, I’ve never managed my teenage fantasy of being a gigolo to a stream of rich, beautiful women.” I smiled as Giselle rolled her eyes theatrically. “I might as well do the other one of exploring the stars.”

“Great,” Giselle muttered. “You’re finally showing your true self. A kid trapped in an adult’s body.”

I grinned and shrugged before growing serious again. “My decision is already made. It’s not as if I have to break the bad news to my wife and kids. I don’t have any. It’s only a matter of time before you boot me back to the Met, Giselle. Then what? I’ll be back juggling annual leave requests and performance figures. I can’t tell you everything about this job, but it’s big. It matters.”

“Every job matters. To someone,” Giselle said.

“Maybe, but there are scales of importance. Don’t try to talk me out of this. I’m going.”

“Very well,” she said resignedly.

“You mind packing up my stuff? Claim what you want, let the guys in the office take whatever, and put the rest in storage.”

“Layton, you have a settee, a bed, and a coffee maker. I don’t think it will be too onerous to take care of that for you,” Giselle smiled. Yeah, I was somewhat minimalist.

“What I want to know is, who the hell is going to pay my salary?” I asked, changing the subject. Hey, these things matter.

“Damned if I know,” Giselle shrugged. “I’m in talks to add you to the Interstellar List. But unless you want to hang around for the next three months while I sort it out…”

“Well, that wouldn’t exactly be a hot pursuit, now, would it?” I said with a smile before turning serious. “I trust you to sort it. I have a request, too. I know Dev had a kid brother. He’s just started school. Assuming you manage to sort my salary, put…say…a quarter of it into a trust fund for him, between now and eighteen.”

“Layton, you don’t have to do that.”

“No, I don’t, but I want to.”

“I’m sure Dev’s family would appreciate that,” Giselle said. If I didn’t know the cool woman so well, I would have thought she was about to get emotional on me with the way her voice cracked.

“Anyway, one more thing,” I said, quickly moving on. “Pull everything you can about the research that’s going on in Sirius. You’re looking for anything anomalous.”

“You’ve been hanging out with those geeks too much. Anomalous?” Giselle rolled the word around her mouth and then asked, “Just what am I looking for?”

“I don’t know. Everyone who is in Sirius should pretty much have a reason for being there. Sure, there are a few families, but you’re looking for, well, I don’t know, clandestine research? Corporate machinations?”

“You don’t know what you’re asking me to look for, do you?”

“Not a damn clue,” I replied with a grin.

***

“What do you mean you’re going away? You are away. It’s not as if you come home nearly often enough as it is.”

“I know, Mother, and I’m sorry.” The ethereal holograms of my parents were sitting on a couch in the corner of the mess. I didn’t know how much I could, or should, tell my parents, but I wasn’t going to leave without at least saying something. I looked at the aged couple. They had done everything they could to ensure I had a good life, got a decent upbringing, and knew the difference between right and wrong. Now, the sense of duty they had instilled in me was what was taking me away from them.

I was going, and I wouldn’t be home for a long, long time.

“Son, you never bothered to tell us before when you’ve been posted. You telling us now worries me,” my dad said.

I glanced across at Vance, who stood in the corner of the room. She looked thoughtful for a moment and then shrugged, seemingly to herself. A second later, a text appeared on my HUD.
Tell them, just not everything.

I nodded back at her, a silent thanks.

“I’ve been offered a job. It’s consulting in another star system. I can’t tell you just where, but I’ll be gone for a few years.”

My mother gave a gasp and looked at my father. “How many years?”

“I can’t tell you exactly. Between fifteen and twenty.”

“Fifteen to twenty
years!”

“Moira,” my dad said, clasping his arm around his wife, my mother. “I’m sure you’ve thought this through, and you are doing what’s right, but that is a long time, Son.”

“It is. But it’s also something I have to do, Dad. Look, it won’t be forever. You’ll still be around by the time I get back, and I’ll have one hell of a VR image collection to show you.” I tried to smile but knew that I had failed to be convincing.

“Are you coming home before you leave? I’ll put on a roast, get your aunt and uncle down.” My mother was on the verge of tears.

“I’d love to, Mother, but I can’t. The ship is leaving soon. It’s not as if I can just catch the next flight. It’ll be years before I get another chance.”

“Layton, this isn’t fair.”

“Moira,” my dad admonished, “this must be hard enough for him, too.”

“It is, Dad.” I could hear my voice cracking. My mother was so damn upset. No son liked to see that.

“Just make sure you look after yourself. Please,” he said, wrapping his arm around my mother.

“I will. Look, I’m sorry. I have to go. A few other people need to use the room to contact their families. I’m sorry I couldn’t give you more warning.”

“I don’t suppose you can HUDmail us?” my mother asked.

“No. By the time any message gets to Earth, I’ll be nearly home anyway.” I realized that was the wrong answer as soon as I said it. They didn’t care about that. They just wanted me to get in touch as soon as I was able. “But tell you what, if I can, I will, even if the message gets home only a few weeks before me.”

“Okay. Just try.”

“I love you guys.”

“We love you, too, Son.”

“Laters, Gaters.” I blew a kiss and cut the Link, watching their holograms disappear. My eyes felt prickly. I hadn’t cried in years. I blinked a few times and took a deep breath.

I felt a firm hand grip my shoulder and looked up to see Vance, a look of understanding on her face. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I will be. It’s hard, you know?”

“I know. I’ve got to tell my daughter the same thing.”

I didn’t even know she had a daughter, and my look obviously said as much.

“She’s just finished college and has just started her first job, something as far removed from Company business as I could steer her. She has a nice young man to look after her. She barely even gets in touch anymore. Sound familiar?”

I smiled back. “Yeah, it does. What are you going to tell her?”

“The same as you. She knows what I do for a living—not that she approves. She’s one of those bleeding-heart-liberal types. I’m going to tell her I have an attachment.”

“Ha.” I gave an affectionate scoff. The mental image of a frustrated Vance dealing with what she probably perceived to be lefty nonsense over the dinner table struck me as amusing.

“Anyway, Layton, move your ass. It’s my turn.”

***

“I am sorry.” Agapov looked it. The surly Federation agent had told us that he couldn’t come with us. Now we were saying our goodbyes in the airlock of
Gagarin
.

“It’s okay,” Vance replied, surprising me again with her soft demeanor. “It’s a hell of an ask.”

Agapov nodded, unable to meet our eyes. Since he had made it clear he wasn’t making the jump, his surly manner had changed and become more withdrawn; he was tortured by his decision. The choice to hunt Frain and Drayton had lost out to the more instinctive drive to return to his wife and young son.

“Pavel,” I said with a strained and probably obviously false levity, “you’re still on the team. We need someone to stay here and do the hard work while we’re gallivanting around the galaxy. I’ve got my people at The Hague looking into clues back here. Coordinate with them; you can still play an important part in this.”

He nodded, his jaw clenched tight. I knew the feeling. Sometimes, I had not been able to join my team when they faced a shitty situation. It was heart breaking. The desire to stay with your team, to have their backs through thick and thin, always burned deep and hot. But this man had a family, and that, to him, was more important. I couldn’t blame him. After all, why had we signed up to this line of work if not to protect our loved ones?

“Besides, we need someone to apply the thumbscrews to Rosenberg, or Smith, or whatever we’re calling him today,” I said about our informant from the Hibernia station. “One of us is the best person for the job.”

“Yes,” he growled and glared over at Rosenberg. “Rest assured, he will tell me everything.”

“Yeah…” I frowned slightly. I glanced at the silent Rosenberg, drifting a small distance away under one of Major Phillips’s troops. “Just…don’t actually use thumbscrews.”

For the first time in days, Agapov grinned. He drifted forward and slapped my back, sending us both spinning around the entry to the airlock. “Fear not, my friend. I will resist the temptation.”

“See you in a few years.”

“And you.”

The rest of the team said their goodbyes before Agapov led Rosenberg into the lock. It slammed shut with a sense of finality.

Gagarin
slowed as it approached the swarm of gateways at the Lagrange point. This was the hub of humanity’s fledging interstellar society. From daring explorers to colonists, everyone who wanted to go to another star came through here.

“Magnificent, isn’t it?” Frampton’s eyes were positively glowing, whether from the reflection of the holograms, his HUD set to bright, or simple enthusiasm, I didn’t know. I suspected the latter.

I watched on the holotank as
Gagarin
entered the swarm of gates, each one a giant lattice of gleaming girders and equipment modules, ready to catapult whatever was flown into them across the light-years. Except catapult was the wrong word. I was getting nervous.