Death’s Dimensions a psychotic space opera

“You won’t be up during training?”

She smiled and stood up. “I’d only be in the way. Besides, I’m writing up a study on a Brennen grant and I’ve got to finish it.”

“Oh. Well, see you later, then.” NoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNo Delia!

Chapter Four 8 April, 2107

The Big Noise bellows into an ear of Master Snoop and tries to use a strange cipher. I crack it easily. I have a feel for his code, too, though shades of meaning elude me. Hidden behind dark glasses, his metric eyes click around, watching me, watching the phone, watching the launch pad. I sit against cool hardness, my salute never wavering.

Delia’s face appeared on the phonescrim eye-to-eye with Launch Director Muod Jatala. Fatigue had darkened her eyes and unkempt her hair.

“He’s acting like a spoiled brat,” Jatala said. “Been flipping me off for the past twenty minutes and hasn’t moved an inch.”

“Catatonic. It’s just a game. He’ll come out of it sooner or later.”

“Lady,” Jatala’s dark skin grew a shade darker. “I don’t know how much you know about flying, but we’ve got a launch window to Circus that’ll close in about thirty minutes. Now, do you want to pay for the extra fuel or for the launch delay?”

Delia tapped her nails on the desk.

Jatala spoke in a firm tone. “I’ve got a flyer coming out to you. It should be there by now. Be on it.”

She looked at Jatala and sighed. “Straight.”

The pilot landed the flyer a dozen meters from where Jatala stood, where he had been standing for eleven minutes, his back to Virgil. Delia climbed out of the cramped wedge of metal and looked at the Launch Director, then at his problem. She mimicked Kinney, raising her middle finger from an angerclenched fist and pointing it at Virgil, then at the sky.

Virgil lowered his arm.

“You took me away from some important work, Virgil,” she said through a jaw locked with anger. “You’re not getting me on Circus Galacticus for half a year. I know exactly what your plan is and it won’t-”

“Brennen on the phone.”

“-work…” She took the private line receiver from Jatala and lifted it to her ear. “Hello? Yessir… No, he wants to have me onboard, so he’s being uncooperative…” She listened attentively for several seconds. “Damn it, he’s an algologist, not a szaszian thera-Yes… All right.” Her voice wavered only slightly, though her knuckles were white around the receiver as she handed it back to Jatala. “Well. We have eighteen minutes. Everything is ready to lift. Shall we?”

Delia looked at Virgil to see the slightest of smiles on his lips. “I don’t see any reason not to.” He rose calmly and wiped the sweat from his forehead, stepped up to her and walked beside her to the spacecraft. “Excellent weather for flying,” he added in a gratingly conversational manner.

“We’re going to have to work on this desire of yours to get on other people’s nerves.”

Circus Galacticus orbited the Earth in a low-eccentricity equatorial orbit at one thousand kilometers altitude. The Brennen Trust shuttle rocketed toward it.

Over the speaker system, the pilot’s voice spoke calmly, “Circus Galacticus will cross the horizon in one minute.”

Virgil sat next to the one small window facing the bow of the shuttle. He did not bother to look out.

“Thirty seconds.”

Delia twisted about, trying to see past him.

“Ten seconds.”

Virgil closed his eyes for a second, then muttered a short curse. And looked through the port. His breath caught.

Though still hundreds of kilometers away, Circus Galacticus rose over the limb of Earth, a quite visible white slash in the blackness. Virgil squinted and tried to figure out how he sat in relation to it. The starship grew steadily. When it filled a degree of arc, Virgil noticed details and realized he was looking at the ship’s topside. At one end, the engine array lay edge-on. From its axis sprang Ring Three, looking like a white hockey puck with a wide support column stuck in its surface toward its rear perimeter. It bulged slightly in the middle, the preferred design for the tritium cryotanks. The superstructure on the support column appeared identical to the other two on the other rings. Only the rings themselves possessed individual characteristics.

Ring Two encircled a tangle of canisters, globes, tubes and cables. Complex fastening mechanisms held the units together, but it looked to Virgil that, if there were the slightest breeze in space, the entire collection would blow apart like a dandelion. He smiled warmly at the thought.

Ring One housed life support, astrogation, communications, repair machinery, two shuttlecraft, the main computer, space for a thousand frozen colonists-now empty-and a small weapons array equal in firepower to about half that of the former imperial Space Command.

Virgil watched as Circus Galacticus more than filled his viewing port. When the shuttle slowed to an imperceptible creep, all he could see was the prolate ellipsoid fastened to the prow of the ship on the forward tip of Ring One. The ellipsoid’s major axis lay on the same plane as that of the rings’ widths, and was over one hundred meters long, its minor axis about half that.

“What’s in there?” he asked. Small figures floated around the ellipsoid; occasionally the sapphire flash of a welding torch glowed between it and Ring One.

“New addition. It contains the Transfer equipment, peripheral terminals and storage banks for the Transfer computers; you’ll find out everything when we get to studying.” Delia answered calmly, but her left hand reached up to loosen the twist of hair around her neck. Virgil noticed the movement.

Master Snoop tightening up on you?

Eight weeks. Still they hammer away. If I float very still at night, I can hear them scratching at the hull. I won’t let them in. I’m safe. Master Snoop protects me from Nightsheet, but he’s a cruel master. My brain burns with thoughts. Ring One Level Four Section Eleven O’clock: exercise area. Ring Three Levels One through Seven Sections Five to Seven O’clock: Pumps for engine array. Ben speaks to me… Master’s son… Masterson Ben Snoop… Benjamin… been jamming this code for weeks, been-

“Tovar Trine is in Prow-Three-Center and will meet you in ten minutes in Con-One at Auxiliary Panel Alpha,” the ship’s computer said, turning on the lights in Virgil’s sleeping quarters. Its masculine voice was synthesized to be pleasant to the ear.

Virgil floated in the middle of the room, two meters away from any bulkhead. Usually, he awakened floating close enough to one of the padded walls that he could reach out and pull toward the door. Sometimes, though, he woke up unable to grasp anything.

Pulling up into a ball, he took a slow, easy breath and exhaled forcefully, his lips pursed tightly. He began rotating with annoying slowness, then he unfolded and stretched, causing him to twist crazily about a shifting axis. His foot touched a surface and he kicked. His head hit the opposite bulkhead and he rolled, grabbing for a Nomex-7 strap.

Delia stood waiting for him in Con-One, looking out of the wide viewing port at the Earth and space. She had raised all but the ultra-violet screen and stood before the vast sweep of stars, silently watching.

She stands like an angel of death, hands behind her, clasped firmly. She sees the Universe, knows my plans, will act to crush me the instant I let my guard down. Cracker of all codes, she’ll get to mine soon, and when she breaks my most sacred of secret ciphers she’ll know what I want.