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adverse_camberEdit: I'm really not sure why the strange formatting keeps cropping up in my italics. The code is fine, so it must be something peculiar happening between it and the stylesheet or something?
“…Celerity?”
She already has her foot on the little shuttle’s ramp when he calls her name, and a strong, gentle hand interleaves its fingers with her own. She doesn’t want to turn back and look at him, because she already knows she’s going to miss him.
“Yes?” She looks anyway, and their gazes lock; her anxious blue with his sombre crimson.
“You will take care, won’t you?”
She smiles, sadly. “We’ve been over this,” she reminds, taking his hand closer to her chest, wrapping it with both of her own. “Of course I’ll be careful. I’ve got your nephew to look after.”
He manages a smile of his own. “Your nephew, too.” He puts out his free hand and cups her face, strokes her cheek with his thumb.
She flushes, embarrassed, but leans into the touch anyway. “Not quite yet,” she reminds, softly.
“Seriously, Lara. If you want me to tag along, just for peace of mind-”
“No. No, I can’t drag you away from everyone else who needs you.” She shakes her head. “We’ll only be gone a little while. A quarter of an orbit, if that. Just long enough to track him down and bring him back. We can’t drag you away from your duty just for that. You’re too important to be chasing comets.”
“Well, I’m marking it on my calendar, and you better be back soon,” he threatens, gently, and although his optics twinkle she knows he does means it. “Because if you’re not, I’m coming after you.”
He kisses her fingers, and she loses her composure, envelops him in a hug. “We’ll be all right,” she promises, quietly, feeling him rest his chin on her shoulder. “You’ll barely notice we’re gone, I swear.”
“Do you remember the plan for if you can’t find him?”
That’s more of a test, she knows; he doesn’t mean ‘can you remember’, but ‘will you DO what we agreed?’
“Of course,” she confirms, but there must be some hesitance in her voice because he draws back so she has to look him in the eye.
“Please, Lara. I don’t want you to blame yourself for this, and I don’t want you pushing yourself into danger because you feel some silly need to make up for things.” He gathers both her hands in his own. “Not only that, the longer we leave it…” His fingers tighten on hers, the one sign of distress that he allows to escape out past the calm exterior. “If you can’t find him, come back. We’ve already sourced a replacement, the quicker we get it installed the more of Lucy we’ll be able to preserve.”
She looks over his shoulder to the cluster of family who have gathered just outside the shuttle’s launch zone; Lucy – Footloose – herself is at the centre, looking wan, tucked between her parents. She looks… withdrawn. Scared. Strangely smaller than even Pulsar, her diminutive mother, in whose arms she is snuggled. Pulsar’s brother Whitesides is on her other side, his arm mantled protectively around her shoulders; he’s murmuring comfort to her, but at this distance Celerity can’t make out the words. On Lucy’s other side is her father, trying to look his usual belligerent, defensive self, but there’s something awkward about his manner; probably struggling not to look as scared as he feels. His other brother is alongside him, while Dack speaks to Lara; their gentler emotions will never be very visible, certainly not as open as Pulsar’s side of the family, but their fingers are laced together for comfort.
“We’ll be careful,” Celerity repeats, firmly. “And we’ll find him. I promise. Besides, Firewire’s a demolitions expert, not a spy. He’s hardly an expert at making himself inconspicuous.” She manages a feeble smile; lopsided and halfway to a grimace, but he responds in kind, a tiny flicker of amusement touching his pale lips.
“All right.” He nods, as if to reassure himself. “Just… keep me posted. Please? No radio silences?”
“No radio silences,” she agrees. “I’ll keep you appraised every step of the way.”
They both know she probably won’t, not every step, but he doesn’t call her out on it. Both know she’ll be too busy to chase around hoping to catch him just to say ‘no news’.
“Please take care,” he repeats, faintly. “Losing one is bad enough, losing all three of you-”
“You won’t lose any of us,” she interrupts, before he can finish his sentence, and squeezes his fingers. “We’ll find Firewire, get back the component he stole, and we’ll get Lucy back as good as new.”
He looks so… beaten. It’s like he’s already resigned himself to never getting his niece back. The downcast gaze and downturned lips make Celerity hurt, deep inside; if only it could be fixed, right now. If only she’d not been so stupidly trusting that she’d let Firewire escape in the first place! She leans forward and steals a kiss from him, wishing she could do more to comfort. There’s a sort of quiet longing in his manner as he returns the gesture, and for a second or two she (selfishly) wishes he could come along, if only to keep her company, to absolve her a little of the blame! Her lips tingle with a sort of shared electricity, a phantom kiss of static, when she straightens away from him.
“I love you.” She stumbles over the words.
His smile is a little more genuine, this time, and he’s about to reply when a voice cuts down from within the shuttle.
“HEY, Lara, come on!” Slipstream could never have been labelled as particularly patient, and he’s impatient to be away, chasing his sister’s tormentor before Firewire can flee too far. “What are you doing out there, building the launch pad?” Glancing up, they can both see the irritable violet glow of his optics in the gloomy interior. “Come. On.”
She gives Dack a reluctant smile, and an unenthusiastic salute. “We’ll be back before you realise we’ve gone, Superintendent.”
“You better be,” he threatens. “I have every confidence in your abilities, Celerity, but please, don’t get in over your head. You don’t have to single-handedly repair the damage he caused.”
“I know. I’ll try not to…”
“Hey, LARA, wakey wakey! You still with me, or what?”
“…hmm?” It took a moment or two for Celerity to realise that the unfamiliar blue optics staring blearily at her were in fact her own, reflected off the shuttle’s forward viewscreen.
“…Celerity? Everything all right?”
Day-dreaming again; bad girl. Tearing her gaze away from the viewer, she met the worried violet gaze of the pilot, and forced a smile. “I’m fine, Seem. Just… thinking.”
Slipstream snorted, softly, and returned his attention to the instrument panel. “Can’t imagine what about,” he sniped. “You’re looking all moony again.”
“I can’t help it if I miss your uncle,” she chastised, giving him a stern flick around the antennae.
He rubbed his auditory vent, but was still grinning. “Should have let your sister come along instead. Vecks wouldn’t be going gooshy all the time.”
Celerity pssh-ed, and rolled her eyes. “Not over Dack, no, but you’d certainly not get any sense out of her unless you brought Longbeam,” she challenged, “and then you’d still not get any sense out of her. At least I’m only daydreaming, not interfacing in the rear cabin.”
Slipstream snorted a cynical laugh and made ew faces, but didn’t comment otherwise.
Daydreaming was one of the few things they had to do, in their little vessel out in the middle of nowhere. Fred – the spiderkitty/“housecat” – could at least while the endless hours away by hibernating; even now, he was a tangle of brown fur and multiple limbs, wrapped in a crocheted blanket in the end of one of the stasis pods. He’d been an abstract sort of company for the first few days, but rapidly got bored of the inactivity, and retired away to sleep.
They’d been travelling for just over an eighth of a planetary orbit so far already – ‘chasing fragging… electric snowflakes’, as Slipstream had sourly put it – which did rather put a dampener on Celerity’s hopes of getting back in just a quarter. But they weren’t making bad progress, they’d been steadily trimming Firewire’s lead, and quite quickly too, while he dithered in a variety of different haphazard directions, apparently unable to decide on any one thing.
“Hey, Lara?”
Slipstream’s voice roused her from her introspection; she lifted her chin from where it had been propped on her hand, elbow on the arm of the chair, and gave him a half-heartedly curious glance. “Hmm? What?”
“Come look at this.” A slim blue finger reached out and tapped on the panel illustrating the particulate trace they’d been chasing. “Looks like he’s finally noticed we’re following.”
She studied the readout, and nodded. The trace had previously looked like a drunken butterfly in a tornado, skittering in a variety of haphazard directions, perhaps to throw them off the scent but more likely because Firewire (who’d never left their home planet in his entire long life) really had no idea where he was going. Now the trace had gone as straight as a die, fluctuating only briefly every now and then to avoid obstacles.
“At least, that’s assuming he’s not collapsed at the wheel,” Slipstream added, dryly. “Or set the autopilot and gone into hibernation.”
“Hm, perhaps.” Celerity inclined her head, dubiously. “I don’t think his shuttle was designed for major interstellar travel, I doubt it has a stasis pod aboard, and even if it does, I doubt its fuel tanks are big enough to last him very long.”
Slipstream shrugged, evenly. “So all we have to do it overtake him, take back what is ours, then whoops, he flew into a star. Right?”
Celerity hardened her gaze. “Less of that, please, Slipstream,” she cautioned.
He wrinkled his nose and huffed. “Well it’s only what he deserves.” He shot her a glare, and she knew he was mulling strongly over their one unspoken taboo; but if YOU hadn’t been stupid enough to fall for the ‘please, I just want to talk to her, just once more? To apologise?’ and left the bastard unattended long enough for him to mutilate my sister and escape… We wouldn’t be chasing comets out here NOW, would we?
“I don’t care about where he’s going,” Slipstream elaborated, softly, in the silence. “I just care about catching him.”
“And we will.” Celerity gave him a look. “I promise. All right?”
The words hung unspoken between them; bit late to make amends NOW, isn’t it, when my sister may never recover.
“I promise, Slipstream,” she repeated, more softly. “Your sister means as much to me as you do, and we’ll fix her – if it’s the last thing I do, I’ll see you both healthy again.”
Slipstream dropped his stare to his hands, and fidgeted, quietly. “…sorry,” he mumbled.
Celerity hummed softly for him, like she had when he’d been a youngling, bemoaning a perceived infraction by one of his tutors; a low, comforting sound that seemed to come right up from her core. It had always succeeded at soothing his and Footloose’s rankled little tempers before, and exactly as she’d hoped, his face softened a little, the hard lines smoothing out of his brow and his pursed lips easing back into a relaxed line.
“How about we see if we can’t work out where he’s going,” she suggested, once he looked a little more amenable to talking.
“How are we supposed to do that?”
She quirked her head over on one side, studying the trace still on the screen. “I wonder…” She leaned forward over her own instrumentation panel, and instructed the computer to extend and extrapolate the possible route.
“You wonder?” Slipstream prompted, leaning closer to peer at her console.
She gave him an arch look – oh, so NOW you’re interested? – but didn’t comment. “I wonder if there’s any planets nearby.”
“You do know the odds against us just bumping into a planet, don’t you?” he cautioned, dryly. “Universe this big, mostly empty space, planets kinda teeny-tiny, and all that?”
“Yes, I know all that,” she confirmed, hiding her irritation at his condescending tone. Science had never been her speciality – she was more a common-sense-is-better-than-book-smarts sort of femme – and besides, Slipstream wasn’t exactly a model of university-level intelligence, himself. “I just thought that perhaps that would explain why his course had stopped weaving around all over the place. He couldn’t decide on a destination, but now he knows where he’s going. Make sense, or is it too stupid an idea?”
Slipstream at least had the decency to look apologetic. “Lars, I didn’t mean-”
Celerity offered a smile. “I know you didn’t,” she interrupted. “Just…” Sigh. “We need to try and get on, spark. We could be out here a while longer. All right?”
He nodded, glumly.
“All right.” She turned the panel slightly so he could see better, and they both watched as the computer suggested a few possible destinations. Some were clearly far too far away, it’d take them a good few dozen orbits just to get there and Firewire would have run out of fuel long before then. Some were inhospitable, or at least had been, a few millennia ago when the science teams had last visited – cloaked either in boiling, choking gas that would corrode and destroy a machine’s venting within a few planetary rotations, or else so wickedly cold all the complex fluids in the body would freeze up and leave a machine crippled, immobile.
A couple looked like pretty good bets, though; one close by, the other another quarter’s travel away. Both worlds were small, sure, but the science survey had reported that they were life-sustaining, and populated by primitive sentients living a tribal lifestyle. Barring any natural disasters, that could mean that the culture was no longer so primitive – for that matter, a few million solar orbits had passed since the last survey, and they could be a space-age society.
“This one looks like a good candidate,” she suggested, tapping a blunt finger against the closest. “Provided they’re friendly, we could try and get the natives to help us look for him.”
“Unless he’s lied to them, too,” Slipstream growled, and folded his arms across his chassis. “Turned them against us before we even get there.”
“There’s nothing to say he’ll do that,” she reassured, trying to lay oil. “He might just… hide himself away, until we’ve stopped looking for him.”
The little mech was having none of it; skewered her on his best, hottest glare. “C’mon, Lara, after everything he did to Lou, do you really think he won’t spin them a load of lies to get them on his side?” He threw up his hands, and exaggeratedly flopped back in his chair, making it creak. “He drugged her into believing she was some… some religious icon! And that was after pretending he loved her! He lied to her and brutalised her, before leaving her crippled when we caught up with him,” he despaired. “The very least he’ll do is lie and pretend that he’s being chased by the Mob, and if not that, he’ll pretend he’s some poor widdle innocent victim of a police conspiracy!”
She continued to match stares with him, for a moment or two. “Seem. Calm down,” she instructed, gently, touching his arm. “To start with, we don’t even know that there’s still a race of sapients on that world, and if there are it’s very unlikely he’ll be able to speak their language. The most he’ll be able to do in the short term is ask for shelter, and by the time he’s been there long enough to start to learn their language, we’ll have caught up.”
Her common sense had, thankfully, placated him. Slipstream huffed wordlessly for a moment or two, folded his arms more comfortably across his chassis, like a self-comforting hug, and hooked his thrustered heels up on the instrument panel. “All right. You win. I’m just being a stupid over-reacting little idiot.”
“You’re worried about your sister. There’s nothing stupid or over-reacting about it.” She patted his shoulder, affectionately. “When was the last time you defragmented?”
He just grumbled, wordlessly.
She sighed, scoldingly. “You’re probably cluttered all the way to your tertiary stacks. There’s plenty of time before we get to our destination – a rotations or two, at least – and I can quite happily look after the controls-”
“All right, all right. I’ll get some recharge in,” he grumbled, softly, hunching his shoulders.
“That sounds like the best idea you’ve had in a long time.” Celerity smiled, and helped him plug into the grid, running the charging cable up into its socket in the side of this chassis, beneath his arm. “I’ll rouse you when we get closer.”
0o0o0o0o0
“There you are, little one. All done!”
“Thank you, Missus Outworlder!” The little ishten treated Mirii to a glowing smile, bowed veeerry deeply, so low her nose almost bumped the grass, then scampered away.
Mirii smiled and placed her used needle in the sterilizer tray to one side, watching the little Ruta depart; hopefully, the child would tell its peers that vaccination was nothing to be afraid of, and they’d come along and get their protective shots as well.
The Laima Salire had brought with them a respiratory virus – little more than sniffles to them, but lethal to all but the luckiest Ruta. It had cut a swathe through the population, killing a third of those it infected and leaving a quarter of the survivors permanently crippled.
It had taken over a hundred years to manage it, but at last the virus had crossed the Hajalla Kari, the equatorial mountains that cut the North off from the South. The interstellar Ondra charity Kamalesi sa’grense, “Healing across Borders”, had put out an urgent appeal for help; funds from those who could afford to donate, but more importantly time from those who could afford to go out and actually deliver the vaccine.
Mirii had jumped at the chance, excitedly! Although for the most part she was a happy little housewife, she’d often entertained the idea of being a nurse – it always seemed like an appropriate counterpart to her doctor husband. Helping out like this, it made her feel like she was actually doing something worthwhile with her life.
“Ree?”
Mirii glanced up to meet the tired gaze of the young vulline she was paired up with. “Is everything all right, Kinta?”
The little dawn-coloured female smiled, and thumped her tail against the ground where she was sitting, just the once, although her whiskers were sagging. “Fine. Just exhausted,” she confirmed. “Just wondered if you were still keeping tally?”
Mirii nodded, knowing Kinta was actually asking ‘how many have we got still to do, here?’ “There’s another fifty nine unvaccinated villagers, seven of whom the elders report are away fishing.” The vulline’s ears sagged, and the pen hastily reassured; “we can still be done by evening.”
“If we’ve got enough doses,” Kinta groused.
“Once the Samadhi is satisfied we’ve seen everyone, we should have fourteen spare.”
“Unless we have any more ‘accidents’…”
Mirii knew that what Kinta actually meant was so long as no ‘Brave Warrior’ freaks out at the sight of all the needles and ‘Defends Himself’, breaking half the stock, as had happened in the last village. She smiled, reassuringly, and threw one of the odd blue fruits their hosts had provided at her friend. “Take a break. I am sure I can get these little tearaways immunised.” She switched instantly into the native dialect, and directed her attention at the little group of children that had gathered since she’d vaccinated their friend. “-Come on, little Umi, and we will protect you from the bad sickness,-” she coaxed, opening her arms to them.
The biggest of the een puffed up his tiny chest and boldly strode forwards. “Me next, Miss Outworlder.”
“There, see?” Mirii teased, after managing to get the all but the most frightened children inoculated in half the time it had taken Kinta to do the same earlier. “As you would say, ‘nothing to it’.”
“I know but it’s taking forever,” Kinta wailed, melodramatically, and flopped onto her back in the grass, arms outstretched. Predictably, the little cluster of newly-vaccinated ruta children took that as their key to come along and jump on her; she growled and wrestled with them, a whirl of pale fur in the grass.
Mirii smiled, and went back to drawing up the doses; the vulline had a strange way of reassuring the little ones, but it was working. Seeing their siblings rolling and squeaking excitedly in the grass, utterly unaffected by the strange medicine, had given the shy ones a little courage, and one of the most timid infants was approaching her, now, clutching her vaccinated sister’s hand tightly but still offering her arm. Mirii made sure she was as gentle as possible, and sneakily gave her one of the candied fruits out of Kinta’s satchel as a reward.
Leaving Kinta to keep the children amused, Mirii opened up a private frequency to her husband, up on Telluvia’s sister-planet “moon”. For sake of a technicality, Sei was the whole reason she was here, too; his official job was a surgical engineer, but since he’d spent a lot of time with non-kiravai sentients, he was often called on for border diplomacy.
//M’chi,// he greeted, pleased as ever to be speaking to her. //How goes the program?//
It’s going well, my love, she replied, smiling. The communications linkup was something very new – something her brother-in-law had insisted on, after that disastrous episode with Yannis – and still a little disconcerting, but she was slowly getting used to replying without having to actually speak. Kinta will be glad to return to home base, I think. She looks tired.
He chuckled, and she felt a flicker of his emotion across the relay. //The poor thing worked in a cosmetic practice, she has probably never worked so hard in her life,// he agreed.
Mirii chatted silently to him for a few more minutes, continuing her work; she could have done the vaccinations with her eyes closed. You have been taking a little longer than normal to answer, she observed, after a while. I hope I am not interrupting.
What she meant by ‘a while’ was only in the fractions of seconds, but he understood what she meant. //Forgive me,// he apologised. //My hosts and I have been tracking an incoming vessel. It is not responding to hails.//
Mirii hesitated just long enough for Sei to realise he’d made her anxious.
//That is, we do not think it is a cause for concern!// he hastily revised. //It is small and seems unarmed, and we do not consider it a threat. Rather, we are hoping to determine if its pilot is in trouble.//
You think that is a possibility?
//It would seem so, if the readouts we have been passed from border sentinels is anything to go by.//
Will you keep me updated?
//Of course.// Again, that flicker of a smile came through. //Rest well, m’chi. You have earned it!//
Mirii smiled back. It will not be so restful without you, love. I hope we can see each other again soon.
She didn’t know why, because Sei had given her no indication that the vessel was close, let alone visible, but she glanced curiously up into the late afternoon sky, anyway. It was empty, of course – clear even of the little scuds of cloud that had been present that morning. Still. She resolved to keep watch. Just in case.
3915 / 80000 words. 5% done!
Note: Yeah, it's already developed past what it started out as, and Lara's revealed something she'd not told me before, too. And why 80,000? Isn't NaNo 50,000? Well, I'm trying to beat my 2007 figure, which is the only year I count as a success (as I only scraped through in 2008 and it SUCKED).
“…Celerity?”
She already has her foot on the little shuttle’s ramp when he calls her name, and a strong, gentle hand interleaves its fingers with her own. She doesn’t want to turn back and look at him, because she already knows she’s going to miss him.
“Yes?” She looks anyway, and their gazes lock; her anxious blue with his sombre crimson.
“You will take care, won’t you?”
She smiles, sadly. “We’ve been over this,” she reminds, taking his hand closer to her chest, wrapping it with both of her own. “Of course I’ll be careful. I’ve got your nephew to look after.”
He manages a smile of his own. “Your nephew, too.” He puts out his free hand and cups her face, strokes her cheek with his thumb.
She flushes, embarrassed, but leans into the touch anyway. “Not quite yet,” she reminds, softly.
“Seriously, Lara. If you want me to tag along, just for peace of mind-”
“No. No, I can’t drag you away from everyone else who needs you.” She shakes her head. “We’ll only be gone a little while. A quarter of an orbit, if that. Just long enough to track him down and bring him back. We can’t drag you away from your duty just for that. You’re too important to be chasing comets.”
“Well, I’m marking it on my calendar, and you better be back soon,” he threatens, gently, and although his optics twinkle she knows he does means it. “Because if you’re not, I’m coming after you.”
He kisses her fingers, and she loses her composure, envelops him in a hug. “We’ll be all right,” she promises, quietly, feeling him rest his chin on her shoulder. “You’ll barely notice we’re gone, I swear.”
“Do you remember the plan for if you can’t find him?”
That’s more of a test, she knows; he doesn’t mean ‘can you remember’, but ‘will you DO what we agreed?’
“Of course,” she confirms, but there must be some hesitance in her voice because he draws back so she has to look him in the eye.
“Please, Lara. I don’t want you to blame yourself for this, and I don’t want you pushing yourself into danger because you feel some silly need to make up for things.” He gathers both her hands in his own. “Not only that, the longer we leave it…” His fingers tighten on hers, the one sign of distress that he allows to escape out past the calm exterior. “If you can’t find him, come back. We’ve already sourced a replacement, the quicker we get it installed the more of Lucy we’ll be able to preserve.”
She looks over his shoulder to the cluster of family who have gathered just outside the shuttle’s launch zone; Lucy – Footloose – herself is at the centre, looking wan, tucked between her parents. She looks… withdrawn. Scared. Strangely smaller than even Pulsar, her diminutive mother, in whose arms she is snuggled. Pulsar’s brother Whitesides is on her other side, his arm mantled protectively around her shoulders; he’s murmuring comfort to her, but at this distance Celerity can’t make out the words. On Lucy’s other side is her father, trying to look his usual belligerent, defensive self, but there’s something awkward about his manner; probably struggling not to look as scared as he feels. His other brother is alongside him, while Dack speaks to Lara; their gentler emotions will never be very visible, certainly not as open as Pulsar’s side of the family, but their fingers are laced together for comfort.
“We’ll be careful,” Celerity repeats, firmly. “And we’ll find him. I promise. Besides, Firewire’s a demolitions expert, not a spy. He’s hardly an expert at making himself inconspicuous.” She manages a feeble smile; lopsided and halfway to a grimace, but he responds in kind, a tiny flicker of amusement touching his pale lips.
“All right.” He nods, as if to reassure himself. “Just… keep me posted. Please? No radio silences?”
“No radio silences,” she agrees. “I’ll keep you appraised every step of the way.”
They both know she probably won’t, not every step, but he doesn’t call her out on it. Both know she’ll be too busy to chase around hoping to catch him just to say ‘no news’.
“Please take care,” he repeats, faintly. “Losing one is bad enough, losing all three of you-”
“You won’t lose any of us,” she interrupts, before he can finish his sentence, and squeezes his fingers. “We’ll find Firewire, get back the component he stole, and we’ll get Lucy back as good as new.”
He looks so… beaten. It’s like he’s already resigned himself to never getting his niece back. The downcast gaze and downturned lips make Celerity hurt, deep inside; if only it could be fixed, right now. If only she’d not been so stupidly trusting that she’d let Firewire escape in the first place! She leans forward and steals a kiss from him, wishing she could do more to comfort. There’s a sort of quiet longing in his manner as he returns the gesture, and for a second or two she (selfishly) wishes he could come along, if only to keep her company, to absolve her a little of the blame! Her lips tingle with a sort of shared electricity, a phantom kiss of static, when she straightens away from him.
“I love you.” She stumbles over the words.
His smile is a little more genuine, this time, and he’s about to reply when a voice cuts down from within the shuttle.
“HEY, Lara, come on!” Slipstream could never have been labelled as particularly patient, and he’s impatient to be away, chasing his sister’s tormentor before Firewire can flee too far. “What are you doing out there, building the launch pad?” Glancing up, they can both see the irritable violet glow of his optics in the gloomy interior. “Come. On.”
She gives Dack a reluctant smile, and an unenthusiastic salute. “We’ll be back before you realise we’ve gone, Superintendent.”
“You better be,” he threatens. “I have every confidence in your abilities, Celerity, but please, don’t get in over your head. You don’t have to single-handedly repair the damage he caused.”
“I know. I’ll try not to…”
“Hey, LARA, wakey wakey! You still with me, or what?”
“…hmm?” It took a moment or two for Celerity to realise that the unfamiliar blue optics staring blearily at her were in fact her own, reflected off the shuttle’s forward viewscreen.
“…Celerity? Everything all right?”
Day-dreaming again; bad girl. Tearing her gaze away from the viewer, she met the worried violet gaze of the pilot, and forced a smile. “I’m fine, Seem. Just… thinking.”
Slipstream snorted, softly, and returned his attention to the instrument panel. “Can’t imagine what about,” he sniped. “You’re looking all moony again.”
“I can’t help it if I miss your uncle,” she chastised, giving him a stern flick around the antennae.
He rubbed his auditory vent, but was still grinning. “Should have let your sister come along instead. Vecks wouldn’t be going gooshy all the time.”
Celerity pssh-ed, and rolled her eyes. “Not over Dack, no, but you’d certainly not get any sense out of her unless you brought Longbeam,” she challenged, “and then you’d still not get any sense out of her. At least I’m only daydreaming, not interfacing in the rear cabin.”
Slipstream snorted a cynical laugh and made ew faces, but didn’t comment otherwise.
Daydreaming was one of the few things they had to do, in their little vessel out in the middle of nowhere. Fred – the spiderkitty/“housecat” – could at least while the endless hours away by hibernating; even now, he was a tangle of brown fur and multiple limbs, wrapped in a crocheted blanket in the end of one of the stasis pods. He’d been an abstract sort of company for the first few days, but rapidly got bored of the inactivity, and retired away to sleep.
They’d been travelling for just over an eighth of a planetary orbit so far already – ‘chasing fragging… electric snowflakes’, as Slipstream had sourly put it – which did rather put a dampener on Celerity’s hopes of getting back in just a quarter. But they weren’t making bad progress, they’d been steadily trimming Firewire’s lead, and quite quickly too, while he dithered in a variety of different haphazard directions, apparently unable to decide on any one thing.
“Hey, Lara?”
Slipstream’s voice roused her from her introspection; she lifted her chin from where it had been propped on her hand, elbow on the arm of the chair, and gave him a half-heartedly curious glance. “Hmm? What?”
“Come look at this.” A slim blue finger reached out and tapped on the panel illustrating the particulate trace they’d been chasing. “Looks like he’s finally noticed we’re following.”
She studied the readout, and nodded. The trace had previously looked like a drunken butterfly in a tornado, skittering in a variety of haphazard directions, perhaps to throw them off the scent but more likely because Firewire (who’d never left their home planet in his entire long life) really had no idea where he was going. Now the trace had gone as straight as a die, fluctuating only briefly every now and then to avoid obstacles.
“At least, that’s assuming he’s not collapsed at the wheel,” Slipstream added, dryly. “Or set the autopilot and gone into hibernation.”
“Hm, perhaps.” Celerity inclined her head, dubiously. “I don’t think his shuttle was designed for major interstellar travel, I doubt it has a stasis pod aboard, and even if it does, I doubt its fuel tanks are big enough to last him very long.”
Slipstream shrugged, evenly. “So all we have to do it overtake him, take back what is ours, then whoops, he flew into a star. Right?”
Celerity hardened her gaze. “Less of that, please, Slipstream,” she cautioned.
He wrinkled his nose and huffed. “Well it’s only what he deserves.” He shot her a glare, and she knew he was mulling strongly over their one unspoken taboo; but if YOU hadn’t been stupid enough to fall for the ‘please, I just want to talk to her, just once more? To apologise?’ and left the bastard unattended long enough for him to mutilate my sister and escape… We wouldn’t be chasing comets out here NOW, would we?
“I don’t care about where he’s going,” Slipstream elaborated, softly, in the silence. “I just care about catching him.”
“And we will.” Celerity gave him a look. “I promise. All right?”
The words hung unspoken between them; bit late to make amends NOW, isn’t it, when my sister may never recover.
“I promise, Slipstream,” she repeated, more softly. “Your sister means as much to me as you do, and we’ll fix her – if it’s the last thing I do, I’ll see you both healthy again.”
Slipstream dropped his stare to his hands, and fidgeted, quietly. “…sorry,” he mumbled.
Celerity hummed softly for him, like she had when he’d been a youngling, bemoaning a perceived infraction by one of his tutors; a low, comforting sound that seemed to come right up from her core. It had always succeeded at soothing his and Footloose’s rankled little tempers before, and exactly as she’d hoped, his face softened a little, the hard lines smoothing out of his brow and his pursed lips easing back into a relaxed line.
“How about we see if we can’t work out where he’s going,” she suggested, once he looked a little more amenable to talking.
“How are we supposed to do that?”
She quirked her head over on one side, studying the trace still on the screen. “I wonder…” She leaned forward over her own instrumentation panel, and instructed the computer to extend and extrapolate the possible route.
“You wonder?” Slipstream prompted, leaning closer to peer at her console.
She gave him an arch look – oh, so NOW you’re interested? – but didn’t comment. “I wonder if there’s any planets nearby.”
“You do know the odds against us just bumping into a planet, don’t you?” he cautioned, dryly. “Universe this big, mostly empty space, planets kinda teeny-tiny, and all that?”
“Yes, I know all that,” she confirmed, hiding her irritation at his condescending tone. Science had never been her speciality – she was more a common-sense-is-better-than-book-smarts sort of femme – and besides, Slipstream wasn’t exactly a model of university-level intelligence, himself. “I just thought that perhaps that would explain why his course had stopped weaving around all over the place. He couldn’t decide on a destination, but now he knows where he’s going. Make sense, or is it too stupid an idea?”
Slipstream at least had the decency to look apologetic. “Lars, I didn’t mean-”
Celerity offered a smile. “I know you didn’t,” she interrupted. “Just…” Sigh. “We need to try and get on, spark. We could be out here a while longer. All right?”
He nodded, glumly.
“All right.” She turned the panel slightly so he could see better, and they both watched as the computer suggested a few possible destinations. Some were clearly far too far away, it’d take them a good few dozen orbits just to get there and Firewire would have run out of fuel long before then. Some were inhospitable, or at least had been, a few millennia ago when the science teams had last visited – cloaked either in boiling, choking gas that would corrode and destroy a machine’s venting within a few planetary rotations, or else so wickedly cold all the complex fluids in the body would freeze up and leave a machine crippled, immobile.
A couple looked like pretty good bets, though; one close by, the other another quarter’s travel away. Both worlds were small, sure, but the science survey had reported that they were life-sustaining, and populated by primitive sentients living a tribal lifestyle. Barring any natural disasters, that could mean that the culture was no longer so primitive – for that matter, a few million solar orbits had passed since the last survey, and they could be a space-age society.
“This one looks like a good candidate,” she suggested, tapping a blunt finger against the closest. “Provided they’re friendly, we could try and get the natives to help us look for him.”
“Unless he’s lied to them, too,” Slipstream growled, and folded his arms across his chassis. “Turned them against us before we even get there.”
“There’s nothing to say he’ll do that,” she reassured, trying to lay oil. “He might just… hide himself away, until we’ve stopped looking for him.”
The little mech was having none of it; skewered her on his best, hottest glare. “C’mon, Lara, after everything he did to Lou, do you really think he won’t spin them a load of lies to get them on his side?” He threw up his hands, and exaggeratedly flopped back in his chair, making it creak. “He drugged her into believing she was some… some religious icon! And that was after pretending he loved her! He lied to her and brutalised her, before leaving her crippled when we caught up with him,” he despaired. “The very least he’ll do is lie and pretend that he’s being chased by the Mob, and if not that, he’ll pretend he’s some poor widdle innocent victim of a police conspiracy!”
She continued to match stares with him, for a moment or two. “Seem. Calm down,” she instructed, gently, touching his arm. “To start with, we don’t even know that there’s still a race of sapients on that world, and if there are it’s very unlikely he’ll be able to speak their language. The most he’ll be able to do in the short term is ask for shelter, and by the time he’s been there long enough to start to learn their language, we’ll have caught up.”
Her common sense had, thankfully, placated him. Slipstream huffed wordlessly for a moment or two, folded his arms more comfortably across his chassis, like a self-comforting hug, and hooked his thrustered heels up on the instrument panel. “All right. You win. I’m just being a stupid over-reacting little idiot.”
“You’re worried about your sister. There’s nothing stupid or over-reacting about it.” She patted his shoulder, affectionately. “When was the last time you defragmented?”
He just grumbled, wordlessly.
She sighed, scoldingly. “You’re probably cluttered all the way to your tertiary stacks. There’s plenty of time before we get to our destination – a rotations or two, at least – and I can quite happily look after the controls-”
“All right, all right. I’ll get some recharge in,” he grumbled, softly, hunching his shoulders.
“That sounds like the best idea you’ve had in a long time.” Celerity smiled, and helped him plug into the grid, running the charging cable up into its socket in the side of this chassis, beneath his arm. “I’ll rouse you when we get closer.”
“There you are, little one. All done!”
“Thank you, Missus Outworlder!” The little ishten treated Mirii to a glowing smile, bowed veeerry deeply, so low her nose almost bumped the grass, then scampered away.
Mirii smiled and placed her used needle in the sterilizer tray to one side, watching the little Ruta depart; hopefully, the child would tell its peers that vaccination was nothing to be afraid of, and they’d come along and get their protective shots as well.
The Laima Salire had brought with them a respiratory virus – little more than sniffles to them, but lethal to all but the luckiest Ruta. It had cut a swathe through the population, killing a third of those it infected and leaving a quarter of the survivors permanently crippled.
It had taken over a hundred years to manage it, but at last the virus had crossed the Hajalla Kari, the equatorial mountains that cut the North off from the South. The interstellar Ondra charity Kamalesi sa’grense, “Healing across Borders”, had put out an urgent appeal for help; funds from those who could afford to donate, but more importantly time from those who could afford to go out and actually deliver the vaccine.
Mirii had jumped at the chance, excitedly! Although for the most part she was a happy little housewife, she’d often entertained the idea of being a nurse – it always seemed like an appropriate counterpart to her doctor husband. Helping out like this, it made her feel like she was actually doing something worthwhile with her life.
“Ree?”
Mirii glanced up to meet the tired gaze of the young vulline she was paired up with. “Is everything all right, Kinta?”
The little dawn-coloured female smiled, and thumped her tail against the ground where she was sitting, just the once, although her whiskers were sagging. “Fine. Just exhausted,” she confirmed. “Just wondered if you were still keeping tally?”
Mirii nodded, knowing Kinta was actually asking ‘how many have we got still to do, here?’ “There’s another fifty nine unvaccinated villagers, seven of whom the elders report are away fishing.” The vulline’s ears sagged, and the pen hastily reassured; “we can still be done by evening.”
“If we’ve got enough doses,” Kinta groused.
“Once the Samadhi is satisfied we’ve seen everyone, we should have fourteen spare.”
“Unless we have any more ‘accidents’…”
Mirii knew that what Kinta actually meant was so long as no ‘Brave Warrior’ freaks out at the sight of all the needles and ‘Defends Himself’, breaking half the stock, as had happened in the last village. She smiled, reassuringly, and threw one of the odd blue fruits their hosts had provided at her friend. “Take a break. I am sure I can get these little tearaways immunised.” She switched instantly into the native dialect, and directed her attention at the little group of children that had gathered since she’d vaccinated their friend. “-Come on, little Umi, and we will protect you from the bad sickness,-” she coaxed, opening her arms to them.
The biggest of the een puffed up his tiny chest and boldly strode forwards. “Me next, Miss Outworlder.”
“There, see?” Mirii teased, after managing to get the all but the most frightened children inoculated in half the time it had taken Kinta to do the same earlier. “As you would say, ‘nothing to it’.”
“I know but it’s taking forever,” Kinta wailed, melodramatically, and flopped onto her back in the grass, arms outstretched. Predictably, the little cluster of newly-vaccinated ruta children took that as their key to come along and jump on her; she growled and wrestled with them, a whirl of pale fur in the grass.
Mirii smiled, and went back to drawing up the doses; the vulline had a strange way of reassuring the little ones, but it was working. Seeing their siblings rolling and squeaking excitedly in the grass, utterly unaffected by the strange medicine, had given the shy ones a little courage, and one of the most timid infants was approaching her, now, clutching her vaccinated sister’s hand tightly but still offering her arm. Mirii made sure she was as gentle as possible, and sneakily gave her one of the candied fruits out of Kinta’s satchel as a reward.
Leaving Kinta to keep the children amused, Mirii opened up a private frequency to her husband, up on Telluvia’s sister-planet “moon”. For sake of a technicality, Sei was the whole reason she was here, too; his official job was a surgical engineer, but since he’d spent a lot of time with non-kiravai sentients, he was often called on for border diplomacy.
//M’chi,// he greeted, pleased as ever to be speaking to her. //How goes the program?//
It’s going well, my love, she replied, smiling. The communications linkup was something very new – something her brother-in-law had insisted on, after that disastrous episode with Yannis – and still a little disconcerting, but she was slowly getting used to replying without having to actually speak. Kinta will be glad to return to home base, I think. She looks tired.
He chuckled, and she felt a flicker of his emotion across the relay. //The poor thing worked in a cosmetic practice, she has probably never worked so hard in her life,// he agreed.
Mirii chatted silently to him for a few more minutes, continuing her work; she could have done the vaccinations with her eyes closed. You have been taking a little longer than normal to answer, she observed, after a while. I hope I am not interrupting.
What she meant by ‘a while’ was only in the fractions of seconds, but he understood what she meant. //Forgive me,// he apologised. //My hosts and I have been tracking an incoming vessel. It is not responding to hails.//
Mirii hesitated just long enough for Sei to realise he’d made her anxious.
//That is, we do not think it is a cause for concern!// he hastily revised. //It is small and seems unarmed, and we do not consider it a threat. Rather, we are hoping to determine if its pilot is in trouble.//
You think that is a possibility?
//It would seem so, if the readouts we have been passed from border sentinels is anything to go by.//
Will you keep me updated?
//Of course.// Again, that flicker of a smile came through. //Rest well, m’chi. You have earned it!//
Mirii smiled back. It will not be so restful without you, love. I hope we can see each other again soon.
She didn’t know why, because Sei had given her no indication that the vessel was close, let alone visible, but she glanced curiously up into the late afternoon sky, anyway. It was empty, of course – clear even of the little scuds of cloud that had been present that morning. Still. She resolved to keep watch. Just in case.
Note: Yeah, it's already developed past what it started out as, and Lara's revealed something she'd not told me before, too. And why 80,000? Isn't NaNo 50,000? Well, I'm trying to beat my 2007 figure, which is the only year I count as a success (as I only scraped through in 2008 and it SUCKED).
