Reclamation (2 page)

“Blood …” he croaked out the syllable just as the world shuddered.

Burig’s shoulder slammed painfully into the wall. He gripped the edge of the seat reflexively to keep from being thrown to the floor. Ovin dropped herself into her security seat, fastening the belts down and locking the struts into place so she’d stay within arm’s reach of the capsule.

The ship jerked back and forth for a bad moment before the regulators kicked in again. The racks jingled and rattled and three of them collapsed. A dozen different alarms sounded and the ship’s voice came from every direction. Hull breach, hold evacuation, engine shutdown. Burig’s head spun.

What in the God’s name’s happened! We hit an asteroid? What …

“You’re being boarded!” shouted Dorias.

“How’d
you
know?” Burig punched up the view from the hull cameras. Over the back of the ship’s pitted hull hung a black, unmarked cylinder with its nose buried in the
Runner’s
side.

Ovin’s eyes went round. “Who …”

“It’s the Vitae.” Dorias’s voice cut across the visual.

The screen blurred and cut to black.

“Couldn’t see where they’re coming in …” Burig hit the CALL key to the bridge, and hit it again.

“Tai is on her way,” reported Dorias’s voice from the intercom. “Going to intercept them at the airlock … blood, blood, blood … They’re cutting in through the cooling tanks!”

Burig’s gaze jumped to the wall in front of him.
How like the Vitae,
he thought ridiculously.
Go straight in. No fussing around with airlocks where someone might be able to slow you down
…

“Suit!” shouted Ovin a split second before the breach alarm blared inside the bay.

Burig made it to his feet. The outside image flickered back into place on the intercom. All he could do was stare at the unmarked ship with its nose stuck into the
Runner’s
flank. A thin, silver ribbon of coolant rippled into the vacuum, dispersing in a flurry of sparkling crystal.

Two points of pressure slammed against his back, knocking some wind out of his lungs, and sending him stumbling toward the cargo bay door. “Suit, Burig!” bawled Ovin.

Reflexes honed by years of drills let him yank the locker open and start shoving himself into the pressure suit, despite the trembling that threatened to overwhelm him. Ovin twisted her helmet sharply, left then right, to lock it into place. Her fingers, blunted by the white gloves, stabbed Burig in the collarbone and rib cage, closing down his seals for him just as Tai, in her own suit, shoved open the hatch.

“Ditch the find!” Tai yelled into her transmitter loud enough to make Burig wince. “And get outta here!”

“No!” Ovin shouted back.

“We can’t let the Vitae have it!”

“No.” Ovin’s steady voice carried more weight than Tai’s shout ever could have. “No one’s committing murder in my bay!”

The ship’s voice droned on, calmly reporting the hull breach, the tank breach, the coolant drop.

Burig’s jaw clenched. The
Runner
was already dead. He was probably already dead in his tracks. The realization broke a fresh sweat on his brow. The only thing left to do was to keep the Vitae from getting their hands on what the Family had found.

She’s not really Family,
he told himself firmly as he pushed past Ovin. Ovin shouted something, but Tai grabbed her shoulders and dragged her toward the airlock. Burig stretched his hand toward the main power feed for the support capsule.

Behind him, metal screamed and shattered. Burig’s feet flew out from under him, propelled by the rush of freed air. The deck smashed against his back, splashing a wave of coolant across his faceplate.

Burig rolled onto his knees and tried to scrabble to his feet. Above him, a human figure in a red pressure suit climbed out of the flood of coolant gushing through the tear in the hull. The alarms shrieked. Ovin and Tai shouted. Burig couldn’t even stand. Two more suited humans waded out of the broken tank.

The invader lifted a half-meter-long stick from its belt. A twin bore down on Ovin and Tai. The first bent toward Burig. Burig swung his arm. The invader blocked it almost casually and knelt on his chest. The stick had a razor-edged blade on the end. Burig could see it clearly as it flashed down toward his throat.

Burig gagged on nothing at all. His lungs burned and his arms flailed randomly, splashing coolant across his faceplate. The invader stood up. Burig clutched at his helmet lock. His hands dropped away and a grey haze swam in front of his eyes. There was nothing to breathe and no strength in his arms and the God knew where Ovin was and all he could do was watch while the invaders typed the release code for the support capsule and waited for the rack to retract its hold on their find.

How did they know about her?
Burig thought.
How in the name of the God did they know …

With his eyes wide-open, Burig died.

A million years ago, someone, somewhere, looked up at the sky and said “I will go there.” With that, they launched a cradle full of their own kind into the sky. Eventually, distance and history claimed them and left us here. We rise. We fall. We bicker and we make peace. We create our own children and our own cradles. We find our own kind and we lose them again.

Of ourselves, this is all we will ever know.

Alda of Jorin Ferra from “Concerning the Search for the Evolution Point.”

E
RIC BORN WATCHED HARON
Station’s hull rise. It filled the bottom half of the view wall with an ungainly conglomeration of gold and steel blobs. The scene jiggled slightly as the docking clamps took hold of his ship and hauled it into place over the airlock. Behind him, the common room’s terminal chimed twice to indicate an incoming message. Through the doorway that led to the bridge, he could hear the precise voice of Cam, his android pilot, delivering the ship’s maintenance requirements to the station’s docking authorities.

Eric ignored both sets of noises and kept his eyes on the view wall. Another ship, a massive smooth-edged thing, drifted up from behind the bumpy horizon that the station created. Even without magnification, Eric could see the scarlet-tailed comet emblazoned on its side.

Well,
he thought.
You’re here and I’m here. I just wish you’d tell me what’s going on.

The terminal chimed again. Eric sighed and dropped into the overly padded chair in front of the communications board. Impatiently, he skimmed the introductory message displayed on his ship’s secondary terminal.

HARON STATION WELCOMES THE
U-KENAI
INTO DOCK AND EXTENDS FULL GREETINGS TO OWNER SAR ERIC BORN. ACCESS TO ALL STATION PUBLIC SYSTEMS AND AREAS APPROVED FOR UP TO ONE HUNDRED HOURS. TWO MESSAGES HAVE BEEN TRANSFERRED INTO YOUR SHIP’S HOLDING MEMORY. APPROPRIATE DEDUCTIONS HAVE BEEN MADE FROM YOUR ACCOUNT.

Eric glanced at the itemized deductions and typed in his approval code. Then he touched the RECEIVE key and the first message took shape on the terminal’s screen.

As Eric suspected, it was from his employers, whose ship had just arrived. The recording showed a blurry, grey background and in front of it stood Ambassador Basq of the Rhudolant Vitae. At least, Eric assumed it was Basq. He’d seldom seen more than one Vitae at a time, and although they appeared human enough, they all had been white-skinned, hairless, and wrapped in billowing, red robes. Eric always thought of the Ambassador as male, but the delicate bones and thick draping of cloth made it impossible for him to be sure.

“Sar Born,” said the image, “please confirm your arrival time to the Vitae receivers. I will meet you at Data Exchange One to discuss your assignment.” The message blanked out as abruptly as it had begun.

Eric gave a small, wordless growl of irritation. He’d spent the past thirty hours scrambling to get four separate projects to the point where they could even be understood by some other Contractor, let alone finished by them. Then he’d had Cam almost burn out the
U-Kenai’s
third level drive to get to Haron Station, and he still didn’t know what was so urgent.

What can’t you discuss over the lines, Basq?
Eric keyed in confirmation of his arrival at Haron and his ability to be present at Data Exchange One in an hour.
Haron Station rebalancing their accounts without the Vitae’s permission? Or am I just going to go steal some files?

Eric’s two specialties as a systems handler were being impossible to stop and impossible to trace. The combination guaranteed him some of the more … interesting assignments the Vitae had to hand out. He didn’t mind the clandestine work, and he was grateful to have employers who didn’t ask too many background questions, but he liked to know what was going on so he could get ready for it, whatever it was.

He touched the key to bring up the next message. Plain lines of text printed themselves across the screen. A flood of address information spilled out and Eric raised his eyebrows. This one had come nearly all the way across the Quarter Galaxy.

Finally, the heart of the message came into view.

FROM: SAR DORIAS WAESC OF THE CITY OF ALLIANCES, LANDFALL PLAIN, MAY 16

ERIC: AS SOON AS CAN, GET A LINE OPEN TO THE UNIFIERS. CONTACT DR. SEALUCHIE ROSS. THE RE …

The message ended abruptly.

Blasted antique station.
Eric hit the CONTINUE key. A new text line formed.

TOTAL TRANSFER COMPLETED

Eric glanced at the time display in the lower corner of the screen. The hour he had given himself to get to Data Exchange One didn’t leave him much slack time. A message from Dorias, though, was a rare occurrence. What was rarer was the message not getting through in one piece. There was only one systems handler who was better than Dorias, and that was Eric.

He looked at the clock again.
Might be time to at least start to find out what’s happened.

Eric reached for the keys, but before he could issue the first command, the receiving light blinked green.

“Now who?” Eric tapped the light to get an ID for the sender. The screen added the words AMBASSADOR BASQ OF THE RHUDOLANT VITAE to the display.

“Garismit’s Eyes.” Eric keyed the line open and shifted his features into his professionally cheerful expression.

The screen lit up and it might have been the recording playing over again. Basq held the same stance against the same background.

“Good Morning and also Good Day, Ambassador,” said Eric. The greeting was one of the few formalities that he knew was used by his employers. Their culture was one of the many things the Vitae kept to themselves. Eric had never been able to decide if they were full-fledged xenophobes, or merely paranoid. Neither attitude made much sense, since their civilization existed by providing skilled labor to most of the Quarter Galaxy. “I sent my arrival time as soon as I docked. Did you get the message? The station seems to be having trouble on the lines …”

“I did receive your arrival time, Sar Born”—Basq’s voice was a smooth tenor, undisrupted by emotional inflection—“but the assignment is urgent and we require your presence immediately. A transport track has been cleared for you. Please proceed to the pickup kiosk.”

So much for slack time.
“I’m on my way, Ambassador.”

Basq’s silence passed for assent and the screen faded to black.

“Cam!” Eric called as he got to his feet. The
U-Kenai
was a well-made, comfortable ship, but it was so small, Eric had activated its internal intercom only half a dozen times in the five years he had owned it. Shouting down the hall was easier.

“Sar Born?”

“Leave a complaint with Haron’s Mail Authorities. I’ve got a partial message here. I want the rest of it, or a refund.”

“Yes, Sar Born.”

Eric reached into the drawer below the console and pulled out one of the thumbnail-sized translation disks that he kept there.

No way to know who I might have to talk to for this,
he thought as he slid the disk into place in his ear. Eric had only managed to learn one of the languages spoken around the Quarter Galaxy, and he still had trouble with that one sometimes. It was only a minor handicap, however, since most people who worked with offworlders wore their own translators.

His palms itched. He’d worked for the Vitae for six years, and he’d never seen them in a hurry before. They were usually far too organized for that. It was a standing joke that the Vitae did not permit emergencies. They interfered with the schedule.

Seems to be the day for exceptions.
He checked his belt pouch to make sure his identification and account access cards were all there. He had the feeling that this job, whatever it was, was going to take awhile and he didn’t want to be caught locked out of any of his accounts.

Eric undid the console’s stasis drawer. He eased his tool case out of its holder and checked the contents. The delicate probes, virus cards, and line translators all lay snug in their compartments. After a moment’s consideration, he hung the spare diagnostics kit on his belt beside his card pouch.
Better be ready for anything.

He ordered the terminal to hold Dorias’s message in storage and, case in hand, walked out the
U-Kenai’s
arched airlock into Haron Station.

The dock’s corridor was empty, except for a pair of dog-sized cleaning drones polishing scuff marks off the metallic deck and walls. Haron reserved frills like carpeting and wall coverings for its residential levels. Eric’s reflection in the polished walls showed a spruce, alert man whose permanent slouch had much more to do with low-ceilinged corridors than a lack of self-confidence. His curling, black hair had been combed back ruthlessly. His grey shirt, loose trousers, and soft-soled shoes were all well made, but strictly functional.

Eric stepped around the drones. Over their whirring brushes, he could hear the staccato bursts of voices, the arrhythmic tread of booted feet, and all the other miscellaneous noises created by too many people in an enclosed space.

The safety doors at the end of the corridor pulled aside as he reached them. All at once, the still, station air filled with the smells of sweat, perfume, soap, and disinfectant and the babble of half-translated voices. People from a thousand light-years’ worth of climates and cultures crowded the warrenlike hallways, intent on accomplishing the business of their lives.