The Caphenon Read online

  Lhyn translated, and both the Lancer and Colonel Micah smiled at her as they touched palms. Lancer Tal spoke at greater length and then waited, her eyes never leaving Ekatya’s.

  “She said we have a little while yet, because Lieutenant Candini and the Alseans who pulled me out of there are still climbing down the ladder. They offered to airlift Candini out, but she refused.”

  Ekatya snorted. “Of course she did.”

  “You have no room to speak, Ekatya. I heard something about you climbing down twenty decks with a broken leg. Not to mention walking the entire length of the skirt to the bow.”

  “I didn’t actually walk down the skirt. It was more like Candini and Baldassar carried me and put me down every few steps.”

  Lhyn gave her a look of fond exasperation. “Yes, that makes it so much better. Anyway, we’re invited to wait, and to travel, in the Lancer’s personal cabin. I think that means a special cabin in her transport. They don’t call them shuttles.”

  “That much I’ve figured out. And what would you do if I said no thank you?”

  “Don’t you dare!” Lhyn’s look of horror faded into understanding. “It’s not nice to tease the injured anthropologist.”

  “You’re right. Put it down to the injured captain not being her usual diplomatic self. Please tell Lancer Tal that I’m grateful for the offer.”

  A flurry of Alsean conversation resulted in Lancer Tal leading the way up the ramp, followed by Ekatya and Lhyn, with the colonel bringing up the rear.

  “There’s a nice bathroom here if you haven’t had the chance yet,” Ekatya said. “And judging by your face, you haven’t had the chance.”

  “Oh, thank the stars.” Lhyn wasted no time asking their hosts, who stopped and pointed the way, with the colonel going so far as to show her how to open the door. That left Ekatya standing in awkward silence with them, wondering how Lhyn was managing with only one functioning arm.

  She got her answer when Lhyn opened the door. “Ekatya? Um…would you mind helping me wash up?”

  Glad for an excuse to see her alone, Ekatya hastened to help out. Lhyn held up a wet hand as she approached and said, “Turns out it’s hard to clean one of these when you don’t have anything to scrub it against.”

  “You’re in for a rough few weeks,” Ekatya said as she wet down a soft cloth.

  “Not necessarily. Their medtech is pretty advanced, from what I’ve been able to observe.”

  “That’s good to hear, since I have three crew members in their hands right now who need a lot of help.”

  She worked in silence for the next few minutes, getting Lhyn’s hands clean and then moving to her face. As she carefully wiped off the dirt and smudges, Lhyn said, “I’m so sorry about the fatalities.”

  Ekatya paused, meeting her eyes, then resumed her work. “I don’t even know who one of them is. I’ve got two dead crew members and only one name.”

  “We’ll figure it out. But you know you did the right thing.”

  She did. It wasn’t even a question. But why did doing the right thing always seem to cost so much?

  With one last gentle wipe of the cloth, she leaned in to place a soft kiss on Lhyn’s lips. Resting their foreheads together, she whispered, “I am so mad at you right now.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. But I had to stay with you.”

  “Do you know what I’ve been going through, imagining them finding you in pieces?”

  “Probably the same thing I went through, lying there with no idea of who survived and whether anyone was left to find me—or whether it mattered.”

  Ekatya pulled back. “It always matters.”

  “Not without you. One year was already a test of my endurance, and that was knowing I’d see you again at the end of it. Forever? That’s outside my tolerance.”

  “Mine too,” Ekatya admitted. She wanted to hold her, but the arm made it impossible, so she settled for another kiss instead. “We should probably get back out there, much as I don’t want to face that woman again.”

  “Lancer Tal?” Lhyn asked in a surprised tone. “Why not? Hasn’t she been taking care of you and everyone else?”

  “Yes, and that’s the problem. She’s too nice. Nobody is that nice, especially the leader of a pre-FTL world government who has just been confronted by aliens.” Seeing Lhyn’s frown, she added, “I know, you think she’s an admirable leader. But I’m telling you, there’s something off there. She doesn’t act like she has the best interests of her world at heart. She acts like she has our best interests at heart, and that’s just not how it works.”

  “Let me get this straight. She’s giving you the wiggles because she’s not suspicious enough?”

  “Yes!”

  Lhyn chuckled. “You are such a Fleeter. Maybe she’s just exactly what she seems.”

  “Nobody is exactly what they seem. Except you.”

  “I’m hardly unique.”

  “Of course you are. Why do you think I—”

  A rap on the door startled them both, followed by a short stream of Alsean in a deep masculine voice.

  “Colonel Micah says they need to speak with us when we’re ready,” said Lhyn.

  “Then I guess we’re ready.” Ekatya picked up her crutches, tucked them beneath her arms, and tapped the door’s control panel.

  They rejoined their hosts and were led across the front of the main cabin and down a short corridor, where the Lancer touched her palm to a biometric lock. Silently the door slid open and she stepped in, indicating the chairs on the far side of a small conference table.

  Ekatya was impressed. The private cabin was in fact a sort of combined office and living quarters, lit by large windows from one end to the other. The polished wood conference table was directly in front of the door, surrounded by six chairs, and against the forward bulkhead was what looked like a pull-down desk made from the same wood. In the aft section of the room was an arrangement of four wide, luxurious-looking seats in two facing rows, snugged against the panoramic windows. The bulkhead behind them was wall-to-wall drawers and cupboards. Like the main cabin, the entire ceiling was transparent, giving the room a light and spacious feel. Looking up at her once-proud ship looming overhead, shattered and dead, she could have wished for an opaque ceiling instead.

  She followed Lhyn around the conference table and waited as she pulled out a chair, noting curiously that it locked into a set of slides.

  “Clever,” Lhyn commented, accepting Ekatya’s crutches and watching her maneuver into her seat. “Must be for conferences during flight.”

  “This whole room is cleverly designed.” Ekatya took the crutches back, leaned them against the table, and relaxed into her chair. Now she was facing the interior bulkhead, which was just as efficient and attractive as the rest. Aft of the door was a waist-high preparation cabinet, complete with plates and glasses in wooden racks. Next to it was a sink, and beyond that was some sort of large cabinet. A food storage unit, she guessed, and was soon proven correct when Colonel Micah moved to it and began pulling out water flasks.

  Lancer Tal took the flasks from him and handed them around the table, considerately opening Lhyn’s for her. She chose a seat directly across from Ekatya, while the colonel set a tray of some sort of fruits in the center of the table and took his own seat next to the Lancer.

  “Captain Serrado,” said Lancer Tal, carefully enunciating the Common word for “captain.” With a serious expression, she spoke in measured tones and waited for Lhyn to translate.

  “She said—” Lhyn stopped, a look of such sad understanding on her face that Ekatya needed no further explanation.

  “So that’s three?”

  Lhyn nodded.

  When she could trust her voice, she asked, “Do we know who it is? Who they are?”

  The Lancer gave a one-word answer to this question while pulling a transparent cylindrical device from a pouch on her belt. When she unrolled it on the table and tapped it, the device stiffened into a flat sheet, showing data on its
now-opaque surface. After tapping it a few more times, she turned it around and slid it across the table.

  Ekatya picked it up and immediately saw Commander Baldassar’s hand in this. Somehow, he’d not only found out everyone’s status at the healing center, but had also managed to convince an Alsean to let him send this image of his handwritten report. The words stared up at her, damning in their simplicity.

  Fatalities: Trooper 1C Cuthbroad, Ensign O’Sullivan, Trooper 3C Shelley

  Casualties, critical condition: Lieutenant Hmongyon, Trooper 2C Mauji Mauji

  Casualties, stable: Trooper 2C Blunt, Trooper 2C Ennserhofen, Commander Kameha, Warrant Officer Roris, Trooper 1C Torado, Trooper 1C Xi

  She wanted to throw the device against the nearest bulkhead. She wanted to shatter those names into pieces, so that they wouldn’t be true. For a moment her fingers tightened their hold, but then she made herself set it down and push it toward the Lancer. Without meeting anyone’s eyes, she opened her flask of water and drank, closed it again, set it back on the table, and finally looked up.

  “Thank you,” she said. “For understanding how much I needed that information.”

  Lhyn translated in a subdued voice. Lancer Tal dipped her head in acknowledgment, then spoke at some length.

  “She said it was Trooper Shelley who died in the healing center. She’d lost too much blood. The Alsean healers feel terrible about it, because they could have saved her if they’d been able to replace the blood. But Alsean blood isn’t compatible, and of the crew members at the center, only two were a match. She said you might like to know that those crew members volunteered as much of their blood as Trooper Shelley needed, but…it couldn’t have been done safely. The loss was too great and the healers would not risk more lives.”

  Ekatya closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “And we have hundreds of liters of blood sitting there in our medbay. Dammit!” She looked at Lhyn. “Would it be worth it to go back in there and bring some out? Lieutenant Hmongyon and Trooper Mauji Mauji, the ones still in critical condition, are they at risk because of blood loss?”

  She waited for the translations, chafing at her limitations. The sooner Lieutenant Candini got back with that translator, the better. Lhyn was good, but the translator’s near-simultaneous capability was so much faster.

  “She said they’ve already done transfusions and it should be enough. Perhaps later we can look into returning for other supplies, but for now she doesn’t think the risk is necessary.”

  And what if you’re wrong? Ekatya wanted to ask. It’s not your people in danger of dying!

  But of course it was. Lancer Tal had already put her own people at risk, rescuing the Caphenon’s crew in what had turned into a massive operation. And she had done it in response to a simple request, without asking any questions other than how many crew were aboard. No matter how unfathomable this seemed, or what ulterior motives she might have, these were facts Ekatya couldn’t deny.

  She had promised answers in exchange. Answers she hadn’t yet given, and the Lancer hadn’t yet pressed her. It was time to get out in front of this and act like a captain instead of a patient. First rule of diplomacy: Never make someone ask you for what you’ve already offered.

  “If my crew is safe, then I believe I owe you some answers,” she said. “And I’d guess your first questions would be, who are we and why are we here?”

  Lhyn translated, then looked surprised at the response.

  “What?” Ekatya asked.

  “She said yes, those are her first two questions, and her third and fourth are, who was in the other ship and why were we fighting?”

  Ekatya must have looked as surprised as Lhyn, because the Lancer smiled and spoke again.

  “Ah,” Lhyn said. “They know the damage on the starboard side isn’t all from the crash, and they detected the explosion of the orbital invader. I told you they weren’t backward, Ekatya. You Fleeters always think that if a world doesn’t have FTL capability, they must be two steps away from cave art.”

  “I don’t think that. How could I, with you to set me straight?” There had been so many discussions about that, with Lhyn getting predictably impassioned as she defended the complexities of the cultures she studied. Ekatya called it “pounding her lectern,” a phrase guaranteed to rile Lhyn up.

  “Good to know I had some success,” Lhyn said. “Shall I tell them, or do you want me to translate for you?”

  Ekatya felt weary at the mere thought of trying to explain so much via translator. “You tell them. Just keep me apprised now and then of what you’re saying so I can keep up.”

  “What are my limits?”

  “Make it a full debriefing.” At Lhyn’s intake of breath, she added, “We just crashed a ship on their planet. Their technological and social evolution have already been disrupted. At this point, the Non-Interference Act has gone out the airlock.”

  “You’re sure?”

  At her nod, Lhyn flashed a grin that seemed entirely inappropriate for the moment. But Ekatya understood. She’d just taken the restraints off, and Lhyn was free not to only tell, but more importantly, to ask. She expected there would be a lot of asking, possibly even more than Lancer Tal could handle without losing that calm reserve of hers.

  As Lhyn began to speak, Ekatya reached for the fruit tray. She couldn’t remember when she’d last eaten. Settling back in her chair, she listened to the musical sound of the Alsean words and watched her hosts’ body language. This, at least, was a language she could understand.

  Chapter 12

  Seeders and Shippers

  “It’s a long story,” said the alien who’d called herself Lhyn Rivers. “Captain Serrado has asked me to tell it to save time. I’m just trying to figure out where to start.”

  Tal’s theory of pronounced sexual dimorphism had been disproven the moment Lhyn had unfolded her lanky body from the stretcher and stood, towering over not just Tal and Captain Serrado, but also Micah. Her long, loose hair was a blend of dark brown and silver, but it was her large green eyes that made the strongest impact, and the way she held a steady gaze.

  Tal liked her on sight, especially the fact that her presented emotions so closely matched her real ones. She had opened up her empathic senses again, wanting to monitor this conversation with every tool at her disposal, and found that Lhyn’s emotions differed significantly from Captain Serrado’s. For someone who had just survived a life-threatening crash, Lhyn seemed remarkably cheerful. There were undertones of sorrow, mostly directed toward the woman next to her, but the overriding emotions were of relief and enthusiasm, which Tal found baffling. Not much baffled her when it came to empathic interpretation, which made Lhyn a curious puzzle.

  “I would suggest starting at the beginning,” she said. “It’s a twenty-tick flight to Blacksun, and we can’t leave until your Lieutenant Candini and all of my Guards return.”

  “And we want to know everything,” Micah added. “Starting with how you speak our language so well.”

  “Because I’ve been studying you through your media broadcasts for more than seven of your moons, and I’m very good with languages. But that’s not the beginning, Colonel. For that I have to go back in time about one hundred and forty thousand of your cycles.”

  “That might be an earlier beginning than we need,” Tal said.

  “Bear with me. That’s when modern Alseans first appeared in your fossil records, isn’t it?” Lhyn asked.

  “I’d have to ask a specialist, but it sounds correct. Why?”

  “Are there any fossils predating those modern Alseans? Earlier forms that show a clear line of evolution resulting in your species?”

  “Of course not,” Micah said. “Fahla created us to act as guardians of her world.”

  Lhyn nodded. “You share that belief with many planets. Every race but one that we have found on Gaian worlds—by which I mean, worlds inhabited by a race with most of the same genetic markers we share—appeared at about the same time. But none
of us were natives. None of us evolved on those worlds. We were planted there.”

  Tal was reeling from the casual way she’d said “many planets” and almost missed Micah’s question.

  “Then Fahla created other races to guard other worlds as well?”

  Lhyn smiled. “Well done, Colonel. You’ve taken us right into the biggest philosophical schism in the galaxy. The only thing that all of us agree on is that a very long time ago, just as the original humanoids had evolved into their modern form, an ancient spacefaring race picked up a significant percentage of the global population and scattered it across the galaxy, seeding many different worlds. What all of those worlds have in common is a sudden appearance of modern humanoids in the fossil record. Only one planet in the galaxy has a fossil record with examples of earlier humanoid forms. It’s called Gaia, and that’s where Captain Serrado is from.”

  The captain looked sharply at Lhyn, who quickly explained something in her own language. Captain Serrado nodded, visibly relaxing, and Lhyn continued her story.

  “As more and more of these seeded populations made the leap into space, and then out of their own gravity wells and into interstellar travel, we began finding each other. But we never found any signs of that ancient spacefaring race, nor any indication as to why they spread our species all over the galaxy. Gradually, two major theories coalesced to describe our…benefactors.”

  Tal waited, curious to learn the reason for the disdain lying on the surface of Lhyn’s emotions.

  “One theory is that this ancient race was a benevolent one, guiding our evolution and making sure we had time to develop into another generation of spacefarers. After all, if the original Gaians failed to develop FTL—er, faster-than-light travel, they would eventually die along with their planet when their star burned through its hydrogen and began expanding.”

  When she paused, Tal said, “We understand the physics. Every star system has a finite lifespan.”

  “Right, I thought you would.” Lhyn took a sip of her water. “People who subscribe to this theory call that ancient race the Seeders, because they seeded other worlds with our species. They worship them as gods, and believe that the Seeders are still around, watching over us. Their ideology ranges from those who believe the Seeders merely set the mechanisms of life in motion and then adopted a non-interference policy, to those who believe the Seeders watch out for them—sometimes on an individual basis—and actively intervene in daily life.”