"We are going to Mary soon," Hoto said. "I have been trying to tell if we are sailing into trouble."
"Trouble?" Paige was glad that the bull was giving her an excuse to sip instead of chugging.
"We have seen Fenrir. We know that it was an accident that caused the ruin, but if it was our holt, we would not take such destruction lightly."
"You know that Mary caused the accident at Fenrir?"
"Mary's Holt were the ones attempting to make the engine work."
Paige suppressed the urge to throw up her hands. Was she the last one to know what her brother had been doing? "How do you know it was an accident?"
"When our people come of age, they move from their father's holt and roam, looking for a place to settle. It lowers the chance of inbreeding."
She supposed with much of one generation in a small town all being half-siblings, she could see the sense of that.
"One of our young bulls, Caan, came to human waters. He is very brilliant and wanted to learn human science. He has a theory that we are not all coming from the same . . ." Hoto paused and searched for a word. "Outside place. That all that come here are coming from places vastly different and this is the only place we would meet."
Paige made the noise of understanding even though she wasn't sure what he meant. If he meant that they were coming from different galaxies or even universes that would explain the age old human question of why they'd never known of the various aliens prior to encountering them in the Sargasso.
"Caan went to Mary?" Paige asked.
"He came first to here." Hoto motioned to take in Ya-ya's harbor. "He met many civilized and uncivilized beings. By pooling their knowledge, they'd determined . . ." Hoto paused longer this time, searching for a way to making himself clear. "The common point."
"The common point of what?" Paige asked.
"Of here."
She had explained to Turk that jump drives were jumping from point A to point B with the Sargasso being point C. Human had been trying to determine the nature of point C for a long time. When navigating the open sea, the more points of references you had, the more exact you could be with your location. Ethan had combined information from three races. Or perhaps more, if he'd been able to communicate with the seraphim and the hak. And there was the civ.
"Having discovered the common point," Hoto said. "They went to Fenrir to move the engine out into open waters and attempt to send it back to human space. The humans of Mary were to make the arrangements, but something went wrong."
"How do you know?"
"Caan arranged for us to trade engine parts to the humans he was working with. We were to meet them at Fenrir. He communicated with us that they'd moved to Mary and that we were to meet him there."
It was, then, just an accident. Paige drank while she considered the implications. Minotaur beer was actually good beer. It just came in excessive quantities.
"Will we be sailing into trouble when we go to Mary?" Hoto asked again.
"I do not know." Paige did the exaggerated head shake, close to the human gesture but meant that the speaker was more at a loss of an answer than the human's simple 'no' conveyed. "They are another herd. We do not get along with them but we rarely fight."
Hoto didn't like the answer and it showed on his face. "I see. Well . . . good neighbors are distant neighbors."
"What did you ask for in exchange of the engine parts?"
"Submersible pumps." Minotaurs used hexadecimal and had method of counting on their fingers. Hoto held up his fingers to indicate they were to get sixteen pumps off of Mary's Landing. "I'm expanding my holt's fields. It will mean we can have half a dozen more calves."
"You don't care that humans have discovered how to return home?"
"Humans have discovered to blow themselves up." Hoto said. "And home? Home is the place you make."
* * *
By the time they reunited the minotaurs with their children in the hanger of the Svoboda, Paige was stomping in a wandering path.
"Idiot," Turk growled to himself. "She has no stomach for beer."
"Orin! I've got to pee!" Paige bellowed as she stomped up to them, still set at Minotaur volume. "Come and take over."
"I thought only the mouth talks." Turk reached out and steadied Paige as she threatened to tip over.
"Minotaurs can't tell us apart." Orin snatched the cap from Paige's head and put it on. "As long as only one of us is talking at time, everything is hunky-dory."
"Where the hell do they hide the pisspot in this goddamn shit?" Paige bellowed.
"Get her to a bathroom." Orin stomped off toward the minotaurs.
"I need to pee!" Paige shouted.
"You can stop yelling," Turk told her. "I hear fine, and I'd like to keep it that way."
She laughed, teetering on her feet. "Help me find the bathroom before I explode."
* * *
His cabin was closer than the communal latrines, so he took her there. She banged, and cursed and muttered in his toilet closet as he waited. When she came back out, her pants were still untied. They hung low on her hips, exposing her bellybutton and the top of her white underwear. God, why did he find her modest clothes exciting?
"You . . .you didn't fasten your pants."
"Hmmm?" She tried looking down and walking at the same time and nearly fell over.
He caught her elbow, intending only to stabilize her, but she slid into his arms. As always, their bodies fit together perfectly. Her face pressed to the nape of his neck, her warm breath tantalizingly intimate. He held her gently to him, despite the fact it filled him with sorrow, because it was going to hurt more to let her go.
"I miss you." She whispered against his bare skin, her lips brushing him like butterfly kisses.
He would have thought that would make him feel better; to know that she was suffering along with him. But it merely made him feel worse. It made him painfully aware that he was the one deciding if they were together or not. And he had chosen to be apart.
She ran her left hand down his spine. She pulled him closer to her with her right, playing with the hair at the back of his neck. When she lifted her mouth to his, he couldn't resist kissing her, tasting her again.
"You're drunk," he protested as she undid his uniform and slid her hand across his bare skin.
"I'll burn it off quickly."
Because she was a Red.
She sensed his thought and looked up at him, her eyes filled with pain. He hated the fact that he was the one that was hurting her. She couldn't change what she was anymore than he could. He kissed her, trying to smooth away the hurt.
* * *
Ensign Moldavsky's report was stunningly bleak. Mikhail was glad he decided to review the information alone. He didn't need his staff to hear this without their Captain being optimistic.
"Beyond the shielding and their generators, it has four rail guns at the cardinal points," Moldavsky was saying. She highlighted them, making it clear that Mary's Landing had no weak backside. "They seem to be salvaged off of British and Ruskis ships. As far as I can tell, they all operate. Between them, there are sixteen main batteries, creating an overlapping . . .."
Mikhail waved her off. "You don't need to continue." He could see for himself how impossible attacking the heavily fortified city would be. If they had all their Reds, they could drop them from overhead and back off until the Reds disabled key gun batteries which would let the Svoboda dart into the city. With only eight Reds and Turk . . .
Jumping to the Sargasso had been full of risk and uncertainty. Despite its label of 'suicide mission' Mikhail had extrapolated from the fishing boat's existence that the Sargasso would be in some way safe. Invading Mary's Landing, though, would be a true suicide mission.
"Did you find the Red Gold?"
"No visual, sir, but I set up Fenrir's IFF system so I could use it remotely and I found the Red Gold here." She indicated an enclosed harbor area at Mary's Landing that seemed to have camouflage netting stretched across it. "I
say he's trying to hide from us."
Trying—or appearing to try? If Hardin was indeed completely hostile to the Svoboda and knew they'd be looking for him eventually, Mary's Landing could be an impressively large trap. Sitting out in plain site would make the fact that the Red Gold was bait too obvious.
Winning any strategy game was thinking several moves ahead. Hardin wouldn't have graduated with honors from the academy without a good grasp on that. At Fenrir's Rock, damaged as the Svoboda was, Mikhail still had the advantage. He was expecting a fight. The Svoboda out-gunned the Red Gold, and the Svoboda didn't have to worry about sinking. Hardin been caught off guard, realized he was outmatched, and lied to give himself enough space to gain the advantage. He had to know that Mikhail would eventually discover Hardin's connection to the Fenrir's engine; otherwise he wouldn't have needed to lie. Certainly, once Mikhail found the trail of evidence, there had been no attempt to cover it up. Jack Bailey had apparently thrown all of Hardin's plans askew when he started the fight that ended with the engine warping out prematurely.
Hardin had fled to the largest trap he could find and laid in wait for the chase to begin. If Mikhail was Hardin, he'd leave the IFF operating so his enemy could track him into the trap and then disable it.
"Ensign, lock onto the Red Gold's IFF and monitor it for fluctuations."
"Sir?" Moldavsky looked mystified.
"We're going to contact the Red Gold. They're either going to turn off their IFF or move it to an onshore location."
"Shouldn't we . . .. just wait for them to move?"
Mikhail shook his head. "The IFF might not really be on board the Red Gold any more. We tapped it from Fenrir's Rock once already. Hardin might have gone to Mary's Landing and set up his IFF there and left already."
"Oh, I see."
"If it shifts, that means that Hardin is at Mary's Landing now and that he is using it as a trap."
Moldavsky nodded. "Yes, sir."
"Once you have a lock, hail the Red Gold and tell them that I want to talk to Hardin."
"Yes, sir."
Mikhail waited, hoping that he was misreading the situation and that Hardin had simply panicked in the face of the destruction at Fenrir's Rock. Leveling a human town and killing off countless civilians by accident might have made the man nervous, wary of accountability and repercussions. Operating under United Colonies orders, Mikhail could have represented the face of the law. Perhaps.
"This is the Red Gold," Hardin's ship answered Moldavsky query.
"Captain Volkov of the N.V. Svoboda wishes to speak with Captain Hardin."
"Stand by."
Ensign Moldavsky killed her microphone and then spoke quietly even though there was no chance that the Red Gold could hear her. "Sire, the signal just jumped. They've moved the IFF, and are now putting me through to Hardin."
Mikhail nodded grimly. The chase was on.
"Svoboda, please establish a secure channel," Red Gold requested.
Hardin didn't want the Sargasso to learn what Mikhail was about to lay bare. Mikhail considered denying a secure channel. The conversation was sure to be tantamount to stalemate. Denying the secure channel would be tipping his hand that he knew that Hardin counted on Mikhail using the IFF to find the Red Gold.
"Secure the line." Mikhail ordered.
"Volkov, you want to speak with me?" Hardin came on the line after the secure channel was established.
Mikhail flicked on his microphone. "Yes, I did Hardin. My orders are from Director Heward of United Colonies Defense. Unless you've reneged all claims to citizenship to the New Washington Colonies, you are required to assist me in fulfilling my orders."
"And those orders being?" Hardin said.
"To find UCS Fenrir, investigate how its engine ended up at Plymouth Station without the Fenrir and return with a report."
"That last part is a little tricky, isn't it?"
"I've ascertained that you were the force behind the engine modification. You paid for all the parts from Ya-ya's salvage yards. I have part numbers on the engine at Plymouth Station and your name on receipts here. It's a very clear trail, Hardin. At this time, it would be pointless to deny your involvement."
"You have no idea what pointless is. Mikhail Ivanovich Volkov. Son of Tsar Ivan. Clone to Victor the great. A copy, no a parody of Peter the Great; the man was dark-haired for God's sake. The man died over six hundred years ago and people are still so much in awe of him that they recreated him. Every person in that root-bound family tree of yours has achieved immortality. The moment you were born, you became a footnote in history. You'll be remembered even if you fail at everything you do. Pointless is to live a life that's totally unrecorded. To be born, exist, and die to vanish away as if you never breathed air."
Mikhail hadn't expected the conversation to take this direction. "But you live it. You exist. Isn't that the real point of life?"
"To claw and claw and claw until you finally die?" Hardin asked. "My family so obscure that I can't even find records of them living. My grandfather died poor and went into a mass grave without so much a marker. My father's life goal was to be buried in a proper plot—and he failed. They tore down the housing project I grew up in and put new projects up. If I die here, no one will know I ever lived."
"You go back, you're a hero?" Mikhail guessed.
"I'll be Christopher Columbus. I'll be Captain Cook. I'll be Magellan. Now there's fame—don't even need the first name."
"You've done all the technical groundwork. You know the world. You'll be credited . . ."
Hardin laughed. "You stupid fuck. I know what will happen—what has happened over and over again. I become a non-entity around you. I was the star of the academy. The smartest. The brightest. The one everyone expected huge things from. And then you came. It was like a black hole set down on campus. You were the only thing anyone could think about. Every appearance. Every disappearance. Every success. Every failure. I thought I escaped you when I was posted to the Dakota, and then it came through the grapevine—you'd picked my ship. And I could see starting all over again. You were all they wanted to talk about. I had to keep you off the Dakota or I'd never make it beyond lieutenant as long as you were onboard."
"Keep me off?"
"I heard rumors that you were in the academy only to repair your reputation of being slightly reckless. I dug into your past and I found all your dirty little secrets. Not enough to keep you out of the service, but there was an instability that everyone was overlooking. So I hacked the placement system and made it look as if High Command had serious concerns over your sanity. It triggered more extensive psych evaluation than normally is given a cadet. But failing it . . .that was all you."
Mikhail clenched his jaw against any retort. Hardin was trying to work him into a rage. It confirmed his suspicions that Mary's Landing was a trap.
"Sir, they've cut the connection," Ensign Moldavsky said. "Should I try to get them back?"
"No."
Hardin could now wait or move without Mikhail being able to tell where his opponent really was. Moldavsky could return to the Yamagouchi and try to keep visual, but Hardin probably would wait until a storm front to move between them.
The Red Gold might be bait but it wasn't the target. Mikhail had to keep focus on that. The technical crew that did the modifications to the engine was the true target. Even thinking of them as such made him uneasy; this all might end with the technical crew dead. He and Hardin were squaring off in a battle to see which of them would return to normal space. To 'win' Mikhail would need to invade a human settlement in order to take civilians by force.
Was his action justified? He'd promised Captain Bailey to claim Georgetown as a N.V. colony and put it under the empire's protection. If Hardin had been right—that the Sargasso was a safe haven from the nefrim—then the needs of Geogetown were outweighed by those of humanity. But the seraphim were nefrims and there was something going on that Mikhail didn't understand. How could he decide what was the most appropri
ate path without knowing all the elements?
In the end, it weighed all on what the seraphim were attempting to do.
The Hak had told Captain Bailey that the seraphim were the "enlightened" members of their race, which they knew now were the nefrim. Something had happened to the nefrim and they were regressing. If Mikhail understood the religion correctly, an enlightened being was peaceful and saintly; "Angel" was not far from the truth. The regressed nefrim were the ones attempting to wipe out the human race. Were the seraphim attempting to stop the regression? Were they trying to return their race to something more civilized? If they were successful, could that mean the end of the senseless war?
But the Hak had warned that if the humans didn't listen to the seraphim closely, they could make things worse. Worse for who? For the seraphim? For the nefrim? Or for the humans?