Divergence

He raised the clarinet to his lips and moistened the reed.

Another voice spoke in the hold.

“Hello, Eva Rye, this is the Petersburg. Do you wish to engage in Fair Exchange?”

“Two in half an hour?” Maurice muttered, putting his clarinet back in its case. “What’s going on here?”

Saskia was tired and even more bad-tempered.

“Is there anybody in the galaxy who doesn’t know our business, Maurice?”

“Saskia, how should I know? The FE software is obviously capable of more than we were told about.”

“And you say they’re telling us to change course. Have you any idea why?”

“They say it’s dangerous. It makes sense, I suppose. We’re heading now to the location of the ship given to us by the Free Enterprise . That’s our payment, our reason for going to Earth. If the Bailero is located in a restricted area, it would explain why no one else has found it before.”

“Hmmm,” said Saskia, “will it be safe for us to go there?”

“Saskia, how the fuck should I know?”

Maurice looked across at Judy. She was on the other side of the hold, picking green apples one by one out of their paper nests, feeling them for bruises. In the viewing field, Saskia was squirming angrily on the bed, bedclothes rucked up around her feet.

“ Petersburg, who are you to tell us where we should go?”

“Nobody,” said Fyodor, the Petersburg ’s captain. “But you are heading towards a dangerous region. You would do better to fly around it.”

Fyodor was a relaxed-looking man. He reminded Maurice a little of Claude.

“We thank you for your advice,” snapped Saskia. “Now what do you want?”

“Just a shot in the dark,” interrupted Maurice, “but you wouldn’t want us to take something to Earth, would you?”

Fyodor gave a big white beaming smile. “Just a processing space.”

Saskia was past caring. “Listen, all I want is some decent coffee,” she said. “Or preferably some brandy. You haven’t got any of that on board, have you? I will gladly take your processing space, along with any other shit you want to off-load on us, if you can promise me just one decent cup of coffee. At least that way we will have got something out of a deal for once. Failing that, I just want to go back to sleep.”

“I’m sorry,” said Fyodor, “I did not mean to wake you. We drink tea on board this ship, for preference, and I’m not sure how much coffee we have. We do have some vanilla whiskey on board, if you are interested in that?”

“Ignore her,” said Maurice, from the hold. “She’s just in a bad mood.” Something caught his attention. A visual representation was pulsing in a soft spiral at the edge of his vision. He slid his fingers over his console, adjusting his view.

“Is that a systems repair robot I can see on your hull?” he asked. The console was zooming in on the pencil-shaped hull of the Petersburg to focus in on a curved swastika. Four glassy eyes stared back at him.

“It is,” said Fyodor. “The processing space I want you to take is located in that robot. His name is Aleph.”

“You want me to take the processing space inside that robot to Earth?”

Fyodor looked amused. “No, it is the robot itself that wants to travel to Earth, but it is afraid to ask you directly.”

“Not afraid,” said Aleph. “I just thought you might be a little suspicious if I approached you myself. My brother tells me that you did not appreciate the Fair Exchange you made with him.”

“Oh, whatever you think is best, Maurice,” snorted Saskia. “I’m putting you in charge for the next eight hours. I’m