Fleet of Knives Read online

  “Thank you, sir.”

  The bridge was circular, with workstations arranged around a central data pillar. Tactical screens covered the walls and dome-shaped ceiling. Wronski’s chair was one of three positioned close to the door, with a view of the entire room.

  “Please,” he said, indicating the empty chair next to his. “Won’t you join me?”

  We sat, and watched the bridge crew hurry about their assigned tasks. From the main screen, I could see we were still underwater, but now we were moving.

  “We’ve been putting some distance between ourselves and the crash site,” Wronski explained. “When we’re clear, we’ll break surface and make for orbit.”

  “And until then, what’s my status?” I sat straight. “Am I a prisoner?”

  To my annoyance, Wronski smiled. “Gods above, no.” He took a square of embroidered cloth from his pocket and dabbed his forehead. “Quite the opposite in fact.”

  On the main screen, the frigate’s lights cut through the murky water. Shoals of brightly coloured fish scattered from its path.

  “Then please, would you mind explaining what I’m doing here?” I tried to keep my voice level and my tone reasonable, but evidently failed to banish all traces of the frustration I felt, for Wronski looked at me as if I’d snapped at him.

  “Of course,” he said, sounding a little taken aback. He pocketed the handkerchief, rubbed his hands on his thighs, and stood. “If you’ll follow me, I’ll endeavour to explain everything.”

  With a nod to his second-in-command, he led me to the briefing room adjoining the bridge.

  The briefing room had chairs for the frigate’s senior officers, arranged around a wooden meeting table. Wronski parked himself at the head of the table, and indicated I should sit to his right. I shook my head. I just wanted answers.

  “All right,” he said, still sounding a little put out. “I’ll tell you what I know.”

  He tapped the tabletop and a hologram appeared in the centre of the room.

  “This is one of the alien ships you helped bring back from the Gallery,” he said. The ship in question resembled a dagger made of porcelain or marble. “Right now, there are a million of them parked around Camrose Station.”

  I sighed. “I’ve already told the navy everything I know about the Marble Armada.”

  “Yes.” Wronski placed his hands on the table, one resting on top of the other. “I’ve read the transcription of your debriefing.”

  “Then I don’t know what else you want from me.” While marooned in the Gallery, I’d spent some time in the company of a creature that spoke on behalf of the white ships, but I’d told my interrogators everything I could recall of our conversations.

  “It’s not what I want,” Wronski said crossly. “It’s what the ships want.”

  “The ships?”

  “Some weeks ago, we received a request from the Armada.” He moistened his lips. “From what I’ve been told, it seems they need a human representative to accompany them, to have the final say on certain moral questions.”

  “They need a leader?” I was surprised. “I thought they had the Trouble Dog?”

  Wronski shook his head. “The Trouble Dog gave them a purpose, but she’s not their leader.” He adjusted the controls and the hologram changed. The scale expanded until we were looking at a veritable cloud of white ships. “The impression I get is that now they have their purpose, they require a biological entity to sanction the actions necessary to implement it.”

  “What actions?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And where do I come in?”

  Wronski leant back in his chair. All traces of resentment were gone from his face, replaced by an expression that might have been curiosity, and might have been pity.

  “You’re the biological entity.”

  “Me?” I waved the suggestion away. “Don’t be absurd. I’ve already been judged by the Armada, and declared unworthy.”

  “Nevertheless. To have one of our own aboard, helping direct their activities—you can see how that might be a great advantage for the Conglomeration.”

  “Yes, but—”

  Wronski rose to his feet. “You realise now why we had to snatch you from that prison?”

  I held up my hands to stop him from talking.

  “I’m sorry, Commodore. I think you’ve got the wrong person. The Armada’s avatar accompanied me to the Trouble Dog, but then lost interest. It wanted me to stand trial for what I did at Pelapatarn. Beyond that, I don’t think it had any use for me.”

  Wronski tapped his fingers against his chin. “I’m afraid that’s where you’re wrong, Captain Sudak. You see, when they contacted us, they asked for you personally.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  SAL KONSTANZ

  The signal was from Ambassador Odom and had been relayed from Camrose via a higher dimensional transmitter. The sound quality was passable, but the picture kept freezing. Random bursts of pixels came and went, and the ambassador’s speech kept drifting out of sync with the movements of his mouth.

  “There’s a ship in distress,” he said. “I’d like you to go after it.”

  I felt my smile stiffen. “Does this mean you’re returning us to active duty?”

  Odom glanced away. “As it turns out, you’re significantly closer than any of our other vessels.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  Static hissed across the screen. Through it, Odom said, “I would have preferred you to have had more time to iron out any issues arising from the Trouble Dog’s refit. But I don’t see I have any choice here. You can get to the site a week earlier than anything else we’ve got in the area.”

  I felt a flush of excitement. I’d been enjoying our freedom, and thought I’d be reluctant to give it up, but now the call had come, I realised it would be good to have a purpose again. We’d recuperated from our injuries and paid our respects to those we’d lost. Now we needed something to stop us wallowing in our regrets. It was time to move on, and start looking ahead again, rather than astern.

  “I’m sending through the coordinates and a copy of the signal,” Odom said. “It’s from a privateer called Lucy’s Ghost, operating out of Tusker Quay with a crew of ten.”

  I glanced at the specs. The ship seemed to be a fairly standard freighter. Maybe she was a little on the elderly side, but nothing really out of the ordinary. I removed my baseball cap and ran a hand through my hair.

  “She’s pretty far out.”

  “Right on the border with the Nymtoq territories.”

  “Any idea what she’s doing out there?”

  Odom shrugged. “None, I’m afraid. But the Nymtoq have been a little touchy of late, especially since the brouhaha in the Gallery.” He chewed his lower lip for a moment. “Please make sure you don’t do anything to antagonise them.”

  I grinned at him.

  “Who, us?”

  “Yes, you.”

  “We’ll do our best.”

  Odom clasped his hands together. “Thank you, Sally. I know you won’t let me down.”

  I made a face.

  “Don’t jinx it. We’re not there yet.”

  * * *

  I asked the others to meet me in the galley.

  Alva Clay turned up barefoot and hung-over, wrapped in a blanket and rubbing sleep from puffy eyes. Preston lingered at the door, refusing to look directly at me. Only the Druff engineer, Nod, seemed fully awake and attentive. It lowered itself to the floor in the middle of the room, and turned four of its six faces in my direction.

  The Trouble Dog joined us via a projection of her avatar on the wall screen. Now we were back on active service, she’d dropped her earlier finery for a simple white tunic, coloured her lips black, and shortened her hair into a severe, businesslike crop.

  Standing at the front of the room, I tipped back the brim of my cap.

  “Okay, listen up. We’ve got a job. There’s a crashed freighter about fifteen lights from here, wit
h a crew of ten.”

  Clay stifled a yawn. “And the House wants us to go?”

  “We’re the nearest.”

  She rubbed her eyes. Her dreadlocks were tied back in a thick bunch at the back of her head. “I thought we were on sabbatical?”

  I shrugged. “We’ve been recalled.”

  “And you got me out of bed for this?”

  I opened my mouth. I had expected excitement at the prospect of a new adventure.

  “I wanted to make sure we were all in agreement,” I said.

  Clay rose to her feet with an irritated huff. “You’re the captain, you don’t need our agreement. If you say that’s where we’re going, that’s where we’re going.” She pulled the blanket more tightly around her shoulders. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I haven’t slept in three days.”

  We stood looking at each other. After a moment, it dawned on me that she was waiting for my permission to leave.

  “Okay, fine.” I waved her away. “You’re excused.”

  She smiled. “Thank you. Just wake me when we get there.”

  She turned to the door, and Preston moved aside to make way for her. When she had gone, he looked directly at me for the first time.

  “How long until we reach the crash site?”

  “About a day and a half.”

  “Then I’d better go and check our infirmary.” He pointed vaguely towards the corridor, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “Make sure everything’s shipshape and ready for any casualties.”

  “Fine.” I turned to Nod. “And I suppose you want to scurry back down to engineering, to check on the engines?”

  The Druff regarded me with four sets of coal-black eyes. Two of its faces tilted to the side.

  “Much work,” it said, using all four of its uncovered mouths. “Always work. No rest.”

  I held up my hands.

  “Okay.” Knowing I was beaten, I waved them away. “Go on, get out of here.”

  I waited until they’d gone, then helped myself to another cup of coffee.

  What kind of crew were we if we couldn’t bear to be in the same room as each other for more than a couple of minutes? Clay seemed to be trying to prove something, but I was unsure what or to whom; Preston seemed to have regressed into a resentful adolescent; and Nod remained just as inscrutable and grumpy as ever. I closed my eyes and inhaled steam from the cup. When I opened them, I saw the Trouble Dog watching me from her screen.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sure you’ve had better commanding officers. Ones who knew how to inspire a crew.”

  The avatar shrugged a white-clad shoulder.

  “I’ve had worse. Once,” she continued, “I had one so awful the crew tried to mutiny.”

  “Really?” I hadn’t heard that story. Despite allowing me access to her museum, the Dog could be surprisingly reticent about her military service. “What happened?”

  Another shrug.

  “I removed all the oxygen from the mutineers’ quarters.” She said it so matter-of-factly it took me a moment to process the implications.

  “You killed them?”

  “Oh no.” I caught a flash of gleaming incisors. “I only did it for thirty seconds, and they were all successfully revived afterwards.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  “Effective, though.”

  A three-dimensional display appeared in the air before me. It showed our destination in relation to our current position. Nearby stars were shown as softly glowing points of rubicund fire linked in a web of clean blue lines. I considered the numbers floating beside the line linking our current system with our target.

  “Can we get there and back in one hop?” I asked her.

  “Easily.”

  “No need to refuel en route?”

  “Not since the refit.” Her old drives had been upgraded, giving her increased efficiency, greater range and additional fuel capacity. “We’ve got enough for a thirty-six-hour jump to the crash site, and then two days back to Camrose.”

  “So there’s nothing keeping us here?”

  The Trouble Dog gave a smile that showed her teeth. “I’m ready to fly, Captain. Just give me the word.”

  * * *

  Carrying my coffee, I left the galley and strolled around the circular corridor at the Trouble Dog’s waist, passing empty offices, mothballed gymnasiums and unused barracks. Eventually, I reached one of the companionway ladders that led up to the bridge at the heart of the ship. The climb was tricky with one hand, so I took the rim of the plastic cup in my teeth, and ascended carefully, so as not to slop scalding coffee on my upper lip.

  Once on the bridge, I placed the coffee on top of my command console, next to the potted spider plant I kept there, and settled into my chair. The bridge was like a scuffed and comfortable cave, lined with readouts and display screens. The rest of the crew seldom ventured up here, and I had come to regard it as something of a personal fiefdom—a sanctuary free from the vicissitudes of planetary climate and human society.

  Right now the main screen showed a view of the port, from the dusty, sand-blown runway to the perimeter fence and the desert stretching beyond. Heat shimmered from the tarmac.

  I doffed my cap, hooked it over the arm of the chair, and raked my fingers through my hair. It had been evening when the ship had picked Alva and me up from the planet, and I badly needed to eat and sleep.

  “Okay. Are we ready?”

  The Trouble Dog’s avatar appeared on one of the smaller screens.

  “All systems powering up,” she reported.

  “Do we have launch clearance from the port?”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Do we need it?”

  “It’s always polite to ask.”

  “One moment.” Her image froze for a couple of seconds. When she came back, she said, “Flight clearance approved. They’re emptying the sky for us. There shouldn’t be any traffic between here and orbit.”

  “Crew secure?”

  “All strapped down.”

  “Then sound the acceleration warning, and take us up.”

  “Aye-aye, Captain.”

  The landing field dropped away like a weight loosened from a balloon, and I watched it dwindle to a grey smudge on the orange sand. By the time we were four kilometres up, I could just about make out, looming on the far horizon, the mesa supporting the Temples of the High Country. And I wondered if there were any tourists standing there beside George’s photograph, looking back at us—and whether they saw us as anything more than a distant bright spark rising into the interminable blue of an endless sky.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  TROUBLE DOG

  Since resigning my commission, I have spent much of my time trying to better understand humanity. To this end, I have studied their philosophies and religions, their irrational beliefs and their most cherished ideals. I browsed works by great thinkers, pondered holy texts drawn from a dozen cultures and traditions, from Mesopotamia to the present day, and immersed myself in the sea of their literature and poetry, trying to get a handle on the slippery notion of a “human condition”.

  I particularly enjoyed looking back through their various scientific explanations for the workings of the universe, from the classic Aristotelian model of a nested cosmos, through to Newton’s laws and Einstein’s general relativity.

  One of my favourites was the slightly daft notion that faster-than-light travel violates the laws of causality. This was once considered a viable scientific theory. Now, of course, my very existence proves how erroneous it was.

  Imagine you aim a missile at a planet one light year away. Through your telescope, the target appears as it was twelve months ago. You fire the missile, and let’s say for the sake of argument that it travels at twice the speed of light. That missile takes six months to reach the planet, and the light from its detonation takes a year to crawl its way back to you. Eighteen months pass between pulling the trigger and seeing the result. Cause and effect are clearly delineated.

/>   Ah yes, the theory argues, but what about the people standing on the target world? To them, the image of you firing your warhead arrives six months after the missile falls on them. Therefore they are seeing the cause of their calamity half a year after experiencing its effects.

  It’s a ridiculous argument. You fired your missile, and six months later it hit its target. Nothing is changed by the fact that the light of your action takes such a long time to schlep its way across the intervening space—just as nothing is changed by the fact you see lightning before you hear thunder. The event that produced both happened according to the laws of the universe; it just takes a while for all its effects to reach you. Does the bullet that hits you before you hear the shot violate causality? No it doesn’t, and neither does the bullet that hits you before you see the shot. As far as the bullet is concerned, its effects (hitting you) follow on from its cause (being fired from a gun); it’s only your perceptions that say otherwise.

  At least, that’s how it was explained to me.

  That was the trouble with faster-than-light travel through the higher dimensions. It really threw a monkey wrench in humanity’s understanding of physics.

  Me, I couldn’t care less. Does a falling bomb care a jot how gravity works? Does a prowling hawk give aught for the physical complexities that keep her aloft?

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  JOHNNY SCHULTZ

  The surface of the Nymtoq sleeper vessel towered before us like a cliff face, as pitted and cragged as any asteroid, every detail sharp and clear without air and haze to obscure the view.

  We were aiming for a cargo hatch recessed in a small crater a half-kilometre forward from the stern. By the time we reached it, the Lucy looked no larger than a broken toy. For a moment, I watched her ravaged, slowly tumbling hulk fall away behind us, taking with it the bodies of our fallen crewmates, and swore a silent oath to come back for them one day, to recover their remains and give them a decent burial.

  “We’re ready to cut, boss.” Lena Kelly had the vacuum torch fired up. I waved my gloved hand at the hatch.

  “Do it.” The sooner we were inside, the better.

  “Wait!” Addison had braced herself in the corner of the hatchway. “There’s a panel here. I think I can get it open.”