Supergiant (Gigaparsec Book 2) (3 page)

Roz frowned. “That’s a file
folder.”

“It’s everything on Jeeves’s race
from the information the Turtles gave me. I’ve added my observations, plus
printouts of all recent papers on protosentience. If you need any help with the
xenobiological buzzwords, I’ll be right here.”

Stunned, she took a moment to
process. “You want me to help with the intelligence testing?”

“I want you to help raise Jeeves.
You’re a natural. I read three zookeeper books on the care and feeding of primates,
and you know more than I do already.”

“I had two younger brothers and a
pet ocelot,” she said. “Jeeves is sort of a mix.”

Max smiled and handed her the
folder. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

She sat back in the chair beside
him and flipped through the file.

What she read there outraged her. A
century ago, the Phib race had been entrusted with evaluating the gentle
mimics, but the war had stripped Phibs of all rights and interrupted any such
experiments. Worse, no race had been appointed to assume those responsibilities,
leaving the mimics open to exploitation. “Saurians are exporting the children
to eat!”

Max nodded, sadly. “Since mimics are
known for their cleverness and camouflage abilities, hunting them provides a
unique challenge. Saurians won’t want to hear the truth if it means giving that
up.”

“But the Union is responsible for
protecting any developing life. It’s one of our most sacred duties.”

“That only happens once
intelligence is demonstrated unequivocally at a Union Convocation,” Max said. “Until
then, the protospecies receives no special status, like any aboriginal tribe that
wasn’t Christian on Earth. Phibs often use the evaluation period to rob
candidates blind, even steering them toward self-destruction—all to get the
mineral rights.”

She put a hand to her chest,
wrinkling the papers in the process. “Surely the Turtles will speed up the
process.”

He shook his head. “Turtles use the
galactic year in their planning calendar. That’s 225 million Earth years. The
Milky Way was born fifty-four galactic years ago. We’ll collide with Andromeda
in another twenty-two, which worries the Turtle planners. The older
space-traveling races have the long view. A galactic second is about seven
years.”

“What about the Humans and
Bankers?”

“They’ll actively resist any claims
because admitting sentience would mean reserving a large number of worlds
around Jeeves’s home planet for that species to expand. Everyone loses
habitable planets.”

She smoothed the crumpled papers.
“Then why try?”

“Because we’re on the side of the
angels here, and the truth always wins out. Even if it doesn’t, we both love
Jeeves.”

She smiled and wanted to hug him
for that. “Why did you tell me this horrible news if we can’t do anything about
it for years?”

He placed a hand on her arm. “So
you’ll believe me when I tell you how dangerous this project is. Don’t tell
anyone his secret, or both you and Jeeves could be at risk.”

Roz nodded. “Thank you for trusting
me.”

“Hey, I didn’t adopt you. Jeeves
did.”

“Maybe we should move you into a
room upstairs, so we can keep him secret from the new crew members.”

“I don’t know. He’s used to this
room, and Jeeves doesn’t like change.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Tomorrow,
we can tuck him into a duffle bag and take him for a little field trip.”

“Maybe.”

Perhaps Jeeves isn’t the one
uncomfortable with change.

Roz read everything Max had to
offer that evening. She asked several questions just to hear him speak. When
she glanced at his wrist computer, she noticed that she had talked an hour past
her normal bedtime. She excused herself and strolled wistfully back to the officers’
quarters.

Roz didn’t bump into Ivy until the next night in their room.
As Roz crept in through the adjoining door between bedrooms, Ivy pointed to the
time and cleared her throat. “Out past curfew, young lady.”

“Oh. I was … um … helping Max
settle in next door.”

“Uh-huh.”

Her time with Max had been pleasant
but innocent. Roz had scanned the ship’s data from the last jump and decided
several of the sphere’s drives were badly misaligned. Only the fact that the
Magi allotted twice the necessary drives had prevented disaster. She had spent
the evening drafting a schedule of ship repairs to be performed at Prairie
station. Inspecting the calibration results would tell her which repairman to
hire long term. “The doctor cleared me to return to duty tomorrow.”

Ivy smirked. “He must have required
a very thorough exam.”

“Stop it,” Roz said, smacking her on
the shoulder. “I wanted Max to be close in case his little guy ever gets lonely
and needs some attention.”

Her friend couldn’t hold in her
belly laugh.

“I meant Jeeves,” Roz explained. “Max
doesn’t even know how I feel about him. Not everyone hops in the sack as fast
as you.”

Ivy grew serious. “Honey, on
Anodyne, citizens live a hundred twenty years. The descendants of Llewellyn can
survive even longer, contributing to society up until the end. As a passive
informant, corporate security would have left me on Eden until I turned sixty.
On active status like I am now, I retire after seven years of service. Then
they ship me back to Laurelin for a life of breeding and boredom.”

“It’s a beautiful name. I heard the
founder named the planet after his wife.”

“No. That’s what we tell the
bankers. It’s really Elvish for the tree of the golden song.”

“That’s bizarre.”

“Not really.” Ivy lowered her voice
to a shameful whisper. “When I die, they’ll bury me in a special grove of trees,
and I’ll become part of the world memory. Psis for centuries onward will be
able to access my experiences and run screaming from the tedium.”

Roz wanted to ask about the unusual
secret but worried more about her friend turning suicidal. “Your life can’t be
that bad.”

“Laurelin command selected me to be
raised in high-g. They filled every moment of my childhood with instruction on
three things: loyalty to the family, survival in any environment, and tricking
people into giving me useful information. My sisters live on opposite sides of Laurelin
so that any time, day or night, one of them can take my report or give me new
instructions. Posy studied nursing, while Daisy does hacking and demolitions.
If they don’t know a skill, we have a network of other psis available to
assist. None of us chose to do what we were bred for. We serve until we die,
and then we serve some more.”

“You have a tremendous gift. It’s
probably the only way Anodyne survived the Phibs and the Lunar Oligarchs. The
Union is enormous. Maybe in a billion parsecs of space you can find some way to
both serve and be happy.”

“Either way I aim to make the most out
of every minute of freedom I have left. Anybody who reads my log is going to
have their body tingle. My sisters begged me to stop the first night with
Reuben because they needed sleep. At least in subspace, I can’t hear them
complaining. The quiet is nice.”

Roz narrowed her eyes. “So
everything you’ve ever seen or heard is going to be available for everyone on your
planet to share?”

“Just my relatives in the secret
service.”

“Is there anything else I should
know about my best friend, the person I’ve told my deepest secrets … who’s seen
me naked?”

Ivy gazed at the floor. “I went
back into the quantum tubes with Reuben to see if we could duplicate the
experiment from our first exposure.”

Roz closed her eyes. “Tell me you
didn’t have sex where I need to work.”

“Honey, we’ve done it in the
pilot’s chair, but not in the radiation zone. We’re horny, not stupid.”

“Eew.”

“Spoken from someone who’s never
tried out the utter flexibility of that chair.”

Roz shuddered. “Ugh. He sheds. That
bristly Goat hair gets everywhere.”

“My point is that all I saw this
time was a bright white light.” Ivy paused. “I don’t know what that means, but
I’m guessing I’m going to get sent home early.”

Roz frowned. “You’re not expecting
to reach seven years of active duty?”

“Max charges in against impossible
odds. You and Reuben support him. I protect the two of you.”

“I’m not asking you to—”

“You’re my best friend. It isn’t a
choice, honey. But if I die while we’re tilting at galactic windmills, can I
count on you to take my body back home to Laurelin?”

Even though Roz was still pissed at
the deception, she hugged her friend. “Yes.”

After a few moments, Ivy separated.
“It’s time for you to learn a few more secrets.”

Roz sat down on her bed. “Crap. I
don’t think I’m ready for more.”

“Ready or not, you need to be
warned.” Ivy put a hand on her shoulder. “Bankers will do anything to make
money, and they have spies everywhere. They’d view my talents as a threat to
their monopoly on FTL communications. All of Laurelin would be at risk.”

“Nobody could kill an entire planet
and get away with it.”

“The Bankers could transmit a
series of ansible messages about a plague, and no one would be the wiser. Do
you seriously believe everything you hear over the aether? By controlling
information, Nivaar controls the economy of the Union. Bankers decide where new
colonies are formed, what businesses succeed, and even what’s popular in
entertainment. Research hospitals give priority to curing Banker diseases and
problems. Those who support them get profitable tips before anyone else. Dissenters
experience garbled transmissions or unexplained delays.”

Roz swallowed. “I thought they were
our allies.”

“As long as our interests align,”
Ivy whispered. “Right now, their banking system relies on the fact that no one
can travel from one planetary bank to another in less than eleven days. So they
only transmit account updates once every
eight
days. What would happen
if criminals had a fleet of ships like
The Inner Eye
that could make the
jump in seven?”

“Someone could empty the same
accounts several times over, crashing the entire banking system,” Roz guessed.

“The Banker intelligence network is
the most pervasive of any species. They have agents on every major university
board and military oversight committee to make sure this never happens. Several
areas of research are deemed illegal by the Bankers and anyone who signs
contracts with them. That would make us the dangerous criminals in the
analogy.”

“But Bankers don’t have jails,” Roz
said. “They make it impossible for anyone to get to Nivaar. The system is
exit-only. How do they enforce this ban?”

After Ivy drew a finger across her
throat, Roz understood the seriousness of their mission. “None of us on the
ship are Banker spies, right?”

Ivy shrugged. “I know Max is straight-up.
He started this company and doesn’t care about money. In fact, if you two have
a future, you may need to oversee the family finances. We all know you’re too
honest to be a secret agent.”

“Because you’ve been watching my
every move for a year?”

“You’re a bootstrap sort who
wouldn’t take help from aliens if they offered,” Ivy said. “We can trust Reuben
because the Bankers would like his line extinguished. His ancestor, the Black
Ram, did everything he could to break his people out of their cycle of debt.
Goats do scut work for everyone to pay the interest on their government’s loans.
Bankers own all the Goat space stations, something Humans would never allow.”

Roz rolled her eyes. Human stations
were used as staging areas during colonization. Later phases used them to
control trade, immigration, and technology access. Terraforming fees paid to
the Llewellyn Corporation and construction costs for a station accounted for
the majority of founding expenses. Such a mortgage could take a century for
colonists to pay off. “That just means we borrow from the Lunar Oligarchs, who
aren’t much better. What about our Saurian partner, Kesh?”

“There’s a reason we don’t talk
about stuff in front of him, and why I’m his new secretary. He makes more money
on the markets than someone should be able to legitimately, and he needed help
hiding from the mob.”

Roz thought long and hard as she
stripped off her clothes to prepare for bed. “Is Max aware of all this?”

“We haven’t discussed it, but I’m
sure that’s why he recruited experts like me and Reuben—to cover his back. His
specialty is working in the field.”

Placing a folded work jumpsuit on
her dresser, Roz shared her worries. “Max plays his cards close to the chest
and doesn’t trust anybody completely except Echo.”

“That’s the business, honey. Once
you’re off this ship, don’t leave his side for any reason. If he asks you to do
anything, do it without hesitation, even if it sounds strange.”

“Sure.” Roz slipped into pajamas
and under her sheets. She turned out the lights soon after, but her mind was
abuzz with possibilities. She stared into the darkness for hours before sleep came.

Max asked Ivy to show Roz the basics of self defense. Even
when Roz objected that she knew how to handle herself, he insisted. Ivy
explained during their first session in the birch forest biozone. “The doctor is
probably concerned about me gaining weight and losing muscle tone in the lower
gravity.”

“Then why is he watching from the
inner-ring window?”

“You mean other than seeing you in
your skin-tights?”

Roz blew a raspberry. “Men don’t
gawk at me.”

Ivy smiled. “He wants to see if
I’ve been trained to kill, but he’s afraid to ask. He also knows I won’t hold
back from giving you a few instructional bruises like he would. Having you survive
is too important to all of us.”

“Are you?” Roz asked. “Because that
would be kind of neat.”

“Have you ever killed your own
food? Snapped its neck? Heard it squeal as it tried to escape? Smelled the
mixture of crap and blood afterward?”

“No.”

“I’ve never killed a
person
and never want that to be necessary,” Ivy explained. “According to Reuben, Max
was a medic for the Phantom Cosmonauts, the special forces team that tracked
down over a hundred Phib war criminals. He’s the only survivor, and he doesn’t
want to see blood anymore.”

Max watched silently from the
sidelines. As promised, after some initial strength training and core
development, Ivy caused a lot of sweat and bruises. After a blow to the head, Roz
rested on the ground for too long, and the doctor materialized without a sound.
She waved him off as soon as her head stopped ringing. “I got worse giving my
brothers a bath.”

Ivy was fast and sneaky, but Roz
had reach and power.

One day when Roz got cocky about
scoring a point, Max snatched her from behind, cutting off her breath for an
instant. “Killers rarely follow rules or work alone. Always be aware of your
surroundings. Running to populated areas should be your first line of defense.”
His breath smelled like mint. He dropped her onto the grass, refusing to meet
her gaze.

She got the message: confidence was
good, but overconfidence could be fatal.

For the rest of that lesson, Ivy
explained how to detect and then lose someone tailing her.

****

Roz relaxed into the routine of working out, meals, and
repairs. Having a library of other Magi ships to draw on made it easy for her
to know what healthy components were supposed to look like. The hardest part of
Roz’s work was leaving some of the fixes labeled and undone as a test for her
replacement. Limited to eight hours of tube exposure a day, she experienced no
adverse reactions … until the final repair scheduled before they left subspace.
She bent the rules because it would only take a few extra minutes. She had
already sent her helpers away. Two hours past her deadline, Roz began to see
double.

What followed could only be
described as a vision.

She feverishly tried to relate the
contents to Max as he carried her back to her room. “They’re waiting. So many
possibilities. Love us. Worried.”

“Prepare a full brain workup,” he
mumbled to a hologram that followed him through the halls to the lift.

“We don’t have the right facilities
for Humans,” replied the replica of Gina.

Roz said, “Echo doesn’t really look
like that. Saw glimpse of white hair.”

“Bring her to me,” the astrogator
demanded.

Max shook his head. “She needs
medical attention.”

“Trust me,” Echo insisted.

Growling, Max ordered the elevator
to the spherical core instead of the sick bay in his old room. After he placed
Roz on the hexagonal cot, he tried to linger, but Echo ordered him away. Only
when he slunk into the elevator did Echo appear at Roz’s side.

Roz babbled, “Your triad hasn’t
died completely. The place below this realm holds a piece of them like a
photograph, hundreds of photographs, all talking at once. Singing, but I can’t
make out the words.”

Rubbing the base of the pilot’s
skull, Echo said, “Show me, child.”

Roz jolted again, as she had
entering subspace. She reentered the forever place, but Echo seemed sad. “Max!”
She vanished into a hidden stasis chamber, afterimages blurring her form.

The doctor hadn’t left their floor
yet. All of his images converged on the pale woman lying on the cot. He pushed
on her chest and breathed into her mouth until Roz coughed awake.

Despite the odd journey, Roz felt
abnormally placid.

Max looked shaken. “Echo. Whatever
just happened, can you stop her from repeating it, or do I need to install a
pacemaker?”

“Sedate her, and I’ll attempt a
temporary block.”

“Attempt?” Max asked, adjusting a
dial before he poked something sharp into Roz’s shoulder.

Words melted into puddles.

****

When Roz awoke, she was in her own handcrafted, teak bed
from Eden. She recognized the flannel sheets Ivy had fabricated especially for
her—tiny pink wrenches and blowtorches on a white background, arranged like
floral sprays. “What happened?”

Ivy shook her head. “You’re banned
from the quantum tubes whenever we’re in subspace. Any other time, you can only
work under supervision for four hours at a time.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Roz insisted.
She wanted to tell Ivy something important about bright lights, but the memory
slipped away like fog. “Retrofitting the secondary drive will take a whole year
at that rate.”

“Until you can be trusted, that’s
the way it has to be,” Ivy insisted.

Roz sat up in bed and touched her
lips. “Why do I taste mint?”

“Probably from the mouth-to-mouth
Max gave you to bring you back from the edge. You scared the crap out of all of
us, honey.”

Something important about repeating
infinite sequences nagged at Roz, and the room didn’t feel right.

Ivy pushed her back onto the
mattress. “Get some rest, pilot. You have a long day tomorrow.”

“Where is Max?”

“Studying your brain chemistry,
EEG, and a dozen research papers. He’s even sequencing your DNA with the Magi
equipment to see if you have latent schizophrenia or psi talent.”

“That’s ridiculous. I’m a null.”

“For Collective Unconscious,” Ivy
clarified. “There are at least twenty-seven other Human talents.”

Glancing at the wall beside her,
Roz finally figured out what had changed. “Why did you move my bed in front of
the door to Max’s room?”

Ivy smirked. “While you were busy
trying to kill yourself, the rest of us were arranging your birthday gift. We
put a doggy door in between the rooms. The passage connects the underside of
Max’s bed to yours. Kesh made matching embroidered pillows, one for each side. When
Max went to fetch you, his intent was to show you our gift. Surprise.”

Roz ran a hand down the narrow gap
between the bed frame and the door to find a soft heap of fur that almost
purred with her touch.
Jeeves
. “Momma’s here. Thank you, Ivy. It’s
perfect.” Jeeves, too, smelled of mint tea, and the aroma drifted up. Oddly,
the combination relaxed her enough that she slipped effortlessly into sleep.