The Stars Blue Yonder (28 page)

“Yes, it's much bigger,” Jodenny said, though she had little idea what Victorian London looked like. She watched a horse slurp from a wooden
trough while flies buzzed around its tail. “Your parents came from London?”

“My dad was from Ireland and my mum from Liverpool,” Sarah said. “My mum, she said that Sydney then was nothing but shacks and cesspools. Nothing would grow right and all the animals would up and die. She was set down to Parramatta with the rest of the women on her ship and that's where my dad met her while he was looking for a wife.”

“They were happily married?”

“Not so much,” Sarah said. “Not like you and the Captain, ma'am.”

A mangy horse and a long wagon were stuck in the middle of the street while two beefy men unloaded its cargo. Jodenny felt bad for the horse. As the years marched on, beasts of labor would be replaced by streetcars, automobiles, flits. Gas lamps would be erected, followed by lights powered by electricity or fuel cells. The buildings around her would fall into decay and be leveled for the next wave of shops, banks, businesses. Some would be saved for posterity but most would be ground to dust. Civilization would steamroll through here the way it did every other corner of the Earth, leading to the Debasement and the settlement of the stars, and Jodenny's own birth on Fortune just a few centuries away. But if Jodenny didn't find a way back to the future this here-and-now would become junior's world.

Sarah was still talking. “My dad, he wasn't a bad man. Just liked to drink a bit. He helped build the Rum Hospital. All those stones! And he worked on the roof, too.”

“I hear there's a museum,” Jodenny said.

Sarah's nose wrinkled. “Big stone building, over by Hyde Park. They don't let people in it except on special occasions.”

“Maybe we could walk that way.”

“I need to get today's chicken,” Sarah said doubtfully. “Lilly won't be happy if I don't get the best of the offerings. And we need eggs. And some brown sugar, some apples—”

Jodenny squeezed Sarah's arm. “Of course you do. And food for your sister, remember? Full of iron. Here's some money. I want you to take it and spend it on her. While you're busy with that I'm going to do some shopping and sightseeing of my own. I'll meet you back at Lady Scott's house.”

“You don't want to be walking alone in your condition,” Sarah protested. “You could turn your ankle or trip, ma'am.”

“I'll be perfectly fine. I promise.”

Sarah looked doubtful but the shillings Jodenny pressed into her palm were obviously too tempting to ignore. Jodenny set off on her own toward Hyde Park. It was both a relief and a worry to be surrounded by strangers in this half-civilized wilderness. A relief not to have anyone hovering over her, but worrisome that she didn't have a gib or a comm-bee or any way of reaching Osherman if she or junior suddenly needed help. Her life as a Supply Officer in Team Space was more remote than it had ever been—a dream she half-remembered, as if someone else had lived through it to end up here.

But the wedding ring on her finger and the baby in her womb were more than enough proof that she had been that person, and was still Terry Myell's wife wherever he was in time and space.

The streets of Sydney unfolded around her. She'd become acclimated to the stink of it all, more or less, but the variety of people amazed her—sailors and laborers, Aboriginals and colonists, all of them wearing faces stamped by weather, illness, malnutrition, misadventure. On spaceships the population tended toward homogenous beauty. Everyone had access to vitamins and skin repair creams and cosmetic improvements, and hardly anyone was fool enough to turn raw skin to the sun. Even back on Providence, the crew and passengers of the
Kamchatka
had more soaps, gels, and dental resources than these people in this era ever would. And so she was surrounded by the toothless, the wrinkled, and the prematurely aged, or men missing their eyes or hands, and women without hair. Even the young were afflicted with acne or pox marks, and some were so painfully skinny that she was sure the idea of three square meals a day was as foreign to them as their strange accents were to her.

Yet they were alive and vibrant, these strangers walking upright in the pages of history, and Jodenny understood for a moment why Osherman had come to embrace them as his own. For as long as this eddy lasted, they were more real and more important to him than sailors yet to be born on planets yet to be discovered. He had been imprisoned by the Roon and stranded on Providence, but here he could walk free and
talk to people and be not a damaged military man but instead a man with opportunities ever unfolding.

Jodenny was so busy studying faces and listening to the crowd that she almost walked past the Australian Museum. It was a solid, stately affair built of sandstone with two Greek columns flanking the front entrance. Farther down the street was the Hotel Victoria, a small exquisite building with a reception lounge decorated with marble, dark wood, and velvet-padded furniture. The interior was cool, dim, and muffled compared with the hot dustiness outside, and Jodenny was pleased that the clerk said Lady Darling was indeed in and receiving visitors.

“I'll send word of your arrival,” he said.

Jodenny sat herself down in a chair and waited. She tried imagining what connection Lady Darling had with Homer, but her imagination failed her. Fifteen minutes passed before a woman in a white dress fetched Jodenny from the lobby and escorted her upstairs to a receiving parlor. The furniture there was even more luxurious, all dark and heavy wood carved by artisans. A tray of tea, tiny sandwiches, and fresh fruit had already been set out on a sideboard.

“Her Ladyship will be with you in a moment,” the woman said before disappearing behind a set of pocket doors.

The hotel was quiet around Jodenny but for the sounds of street traffic through the open window. She studied the artwork on the walls and mantelpiece. The paintings were all of Sydney in its infancy, or British ships meeting indigenous people in canoes, or lush tropical landscapes that looked nothing like the Australia that Jodenny had seen so far. They were full of color and detail and had obviously been done by a deft hand. She herself had no skill at artwork; she wondered if junior might be a latent artist or musician, in addition to her obvious gymnastic skills.

The pocket doors opened behind Jodenny. Lady Darling asked, “Do you like the paintings?”

“Very much,” Jodenny said. “Did you do them yourself?”

Lady Darling smiled. She was dressed in a blue dress that was much more casual than the gown she'd worn at Government House, and her long hair was loose down her back. “You flatter me. The artist's name
is Conrad Martens. It used to be that you could commission his work rather inexpensively, but those years are over. Hundreds of years from now, those pieces will be in museums.”

Jodenny wasn't sure if Lady Darling's words were meant to be a prediction or if Homer had told her about the artist's future work. Before she could ask, Lady Darling motioned for her to sit and poured tea for both of them.

“Does Sam know you came?” Lady Darling asked.

“No.”

“He wouldn't be happy.” Lady Darling poured milk into her tea. “He thinks the less you know, the better.”

Jodenny sniffed the fragrant tea. Lady Darling's earlier smile had revealed straight white teeth that were a rarity in Sydney. Her skin was clear and luminous, and what little makeup she wore accentuated her good health. Perhaps it hadn't been such a good idea to trust her. Maybe Jodenny should have given Osherman a chance to explain his relationship with her, or at least left word of where she was going today.

No one knew she was here, after all. No one knew where to look for her if she didn't return.

“You look alarmed,” Lady Darling remarked.

Jodenny kept her voice steady. “I think I've been misled.”

“He means well.”

“Not only by him,” Jodenny replied.

A door closed somewhere with a soft click. A mantelpiece clock ticked past the hour and kept counting. Lady Darling put down her teacup and gazed at Jodenny with something soft in her eyes. Regret or resignation.

“You've seen through me, Commander,” she said. “Before I was Lady Darling, I was Ensign Cassandra Darling of Team Space. And before I came here, I died in the arms of your husband, Chief Myell.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

One minute Myell was engulfed in the red-hot terror of the Roon ambush at Kultana. The next, he was waking in a soft bed under a yellow bedspread. The room was full of recycled furniture, and the smell of bad coffee hung in the air.

He lurched to his feet and blacked out. The next time he opened his eyes, his adult daughter Lisa was bent over him.

“Careful,” she said. “You hit your head when you fainted. How do you feel?”

Behind him stood Jodenny, crooked and wrinkled and suspicious.

Neither of them remembered him being there before, of course. Twig poked her head in later out of curiosity and it was clear she didn't remember him either.

He stayed in bed until the blue ring finally came and took him away.

On the
Yangtze
they threw him in the brig, which was fine with him. No one could explain the embedded dog tag that said he was a chief or that Jodenny Scott was his wife. She came to visit, but he couldn't look at her face or listen to her voice. Grief for the real Jodenny—for his Jodenny, seven months pregnant and happy to see him—kept him huddled in the corner, every breath like inhaling broken glass.

On Fortune he avoided the academy, the Ithaca Café, and anyplace he might run into Jodenny. Instead he picked a fight in a bar and got tossed in jail. That was fine, too. Pain in his jaw and around his swelling right eye kept him distracted. He was throwing up into a urinal when the blue ring came for him.

On the planet Kiwi he saw Jodenny and Osherman laughing and loving each other in the clear blue ocean. He thought about drowning himself, but the idea of them pulling him out of the surf for mouth-to-mouth resuscitation was too depressing to contemplate.

Back to the
Yangtze
he went, and nothing ever changed. The ring took him to Jodenny and tore him away, took and tore, with no sign of Homer and no hope of rescue.

Then he got mugged on Fortune, and everything changed.

The thief wasn't anyone he knew or had ever met before. He appeared in the back alley of the pub where Myell was puking up a day's worth of beer.

“Give me your yuros,” he said, brandishing a sharp knife.

Myell heaved up more beer.

“Don't have any,” he said.

For that he got a sharp crack on the head with the knife's hilt. Sprawled on the ground, senses reeling, Myell felt the man rummage through his empty pockets and then wrench his wedding ring off his hand.

“No,” he said. “Not the ring—”

Feebly he tried to rise up to his knees, to give chase, but his head swam and he sank back into the muck of the alley.

Staring up at the sky, thoroughly disgusted with himself, he cursed himself. And Homer, wherever the little bastard had gotten to. Kultana. The orchid, the village in India, the god or goddess of Aboriginal
Australia. Surely it was an honor to be chosen to save all mankind but was it too fucking much to ask for a little help and guidance now and then?

He was still thinking of Kultana when the ring came for him.

He didn't remember the trip. When he woke, he saw gray metal bulkheads and dim emergency lighting. The place smelled stale and the cold air raised goosebumps on his skin. He had the distinct impression of weight bearing down on him from all sides—thick, immutable weight that blocked all light and sound and that counted centuries like he counted minutes. This small room resembled nothing but a large metal tomb. Only the trickle of air through a low vent and the hum of the doors opening indicated otherwise.

One moment he was alone, and in the next two teenagers in military uniforms were aiming mazers down at his chest.

“Who are you?” asked the taller of the two. She was blond and gaunt and maybe eighteen or nineteen years old. Ensign bars glinted on her collar but that was ridiculous. Team Space didn't commission officers that young.

The younger teen was maybe fifteen or sixteen, wearing a sergeant's insignia and a scowl. He prodded Myell with his boot. “What's your name?”

He turned his head. What was this place? Nowhere he had ever been before. But Jodenny had to be around here somewhere—

The sergeant teen kicked him in the shin.

Myell jerked in pain on the cold metal deck.

“What was that for?” he demanded.

“Answer the question,” the sergeant said, his face red.

Myell clutched his leg. The hot pain was subsiding, though not fast enough. “Who are you?”

“Kick him again, Speed,” the ensign said.

Myell caught Speed's foot and brought him crashing downward. A mazer shot from the ensign zapped into him, ending the conversation.

When he woke the next time he was in another small room, also dim and cool, and he was strapped down to a medical table at the wrists and ankles. Panic surged through him. He cranked up his head
and saw that his boots and clothes were intact. “Hey!” he yelled, his voice hoarse. “Let me go!”

No one answered. The room was empty but for the table, old medical equipment and useless supplies spilling out of dusty, half-opened crates. Myell banged his head back against the table and pulled at his wrists. The restraints held. The absence of his wedding ring felt like a missing tooth in his jaw. He kicked out both legs, hard, and that was more rewarding. Something creaked underneath him, and he realized if he pulled and kicked enough he might be able to crash the table, disentangle himself, fashion a weapon, and sneak off through this complex or ship or whatever it was until he found out where and when he was.