Reality Dysfunction - Emergence

reassuring for us commercial vessels to know we can always rely on you to maintain interstellar order.”

“Please. Don’t spoil the effect now, son,” Ruben said wearily. “You’ve been doing so well.”

“I’m just a citizen happy to oblige,” Joshua said.

“A citizen who owns a ship that has an antimatter drive,” Syrinx said sharply.

Joshua’s gaze refocused on the front of her pale blue ship-tunic. “I didn’t design it. That’s the way it was built. Actually it was built by the Ferring Astronautics company in Earth’s O’Neill Halo. I understand Earth is the greatest Edenist ally in the Confederation? That’s what my didactic history courses say, anyway.”

“We have a common viewpoint,” Syrinx said reluctantly, anything else would have sounded like an admission of guilt.

“Couldn’t you have the drive taken out?” Ruben asked.

Joshua managed an appropriately concerned expression. “I wish I could afford to. But there was a lot of damage when my father saved those Edenists from the pirates. The refit took all the money I had.”

“Saved which Edenists?” Cacus blurted.

Idiot,syrinx and ruben told him together. the life-support engineer spread his hands helplessly.

“It was an aid convoy to Anglade,” Joshua said. “There was a bacteriological plague there several years ago. My father joined the relief effort, of course; what are commercial needs compared to saving human life? They were taking viral-processing equipment to the planet to manufacture an antidote. Unfortunately they were attacked by blackhawks who wanted to steal the cargo, that kind of equipment is expensive. Jesus, I mean some people are really low, you know? There was a fight, and one of the escort voidhawks was wounded. The blackhawks were closing in for the kill, but my father waited until the crew got out. He jumped with a blackhawk’s distortion field locked on. It was the only chance they had, they were badly damaged, but the old Lady Mac , she got them out alive.” Joshua closed his eyes, remembering old pain. “Father didn’t like to mention it much.”

No kidding?ruben asked heavily.

Was there ever a plague on Anglade?tula asked.

Yes,Oenone said. Twenty-three years ago. I don’t have any record of an attack on an aid convoy, though.

You do surprise me,syrinx said.

This captain seems to be a nice young man,Oenone said. He’s obviously very taken with you.

I’d sooner join an Adamist nunnery. And just leave the psychological analysis to us humans, please.

The silence in her mind was reproachful.

“Yes, well, that was the past,” Syrinx said awkwardly to Joshua Calvert. “Your problem is here in the present.”

Syrinx?oxley called.

The cautious mental tone warned her. Yes?

We’ve opened two of their cargo-pods. They both contain the tokamak coils listed in the manifest. No antimatter-confinement technology in sight.

What? They can’t have tokamak coils.she looked through Oxley’s eyes into the MSV’s tiny cabin. Eileen Carouch was strapped in a web next to him; several screens were covered in complicated multi- coloured graphics. The liaison officer wore a worried frown as she studied the displays. Outside the port, Syrinx could see one of the Lady Macbeth ’s cargo-pods gripped in the MSV’s heavy-duty waldo arm. It had been opened, and the tokamak coils had been removed by some of the mandible-like manipulator waldos.

Eileen Carouch turned to face Oxley. “It doesn’t look good. According to our information both of these pods should contain the confinement coils.”

We’ve been had,ruben said.

Will you stop saying that,syrinx demanded.

What do you want us to do?oxley asked.

Examine every pod supposed to hold the antimatter-confinement coils.

OK.

“Everything all right?” Joshua asked.

Syrinx opened her eyes, and manufactured a killer-sweet smile. “Just fine, thank you.”

Eileen Carouch and Oxley opened all eighteen cargo-pods supposed to contain the illegal coils. In every one they found neatly packaged tokamak coils.

Syrinx ordered them to open another five pods at random. They contained tokamak coils.

Syrinx gave up. Ruben was right, they’d been had.

That night she lay on her bunk, unable to sleep even though the body tensions due to ten days of enforced stealth routine had almost abated. Ruben was asleep beside her. There had been no prospect of sex when they came off duty, her mood was too black. He seemed to accept their defeat with a phlegmatism which she found annoying.

Where did we go wrong?she asked Oenone. That ratty old ship was never out of your sight. You followed them superbly. I was more worried about the Nephele keeping up. Its spacial orientation isn’t a patch on yours.

Perhaps it was the operatives at Idria who lost track of the coils?

They were very certain the coils had been put on board. I could accept Calvert hiding one set in the ship, there’s a lot of cubic volume there, but not eighteen.

There must have been a switch.

But how?

I don’t know. I’m sorry.

Hey, it’s not your fault. You did everything you were asked to, even when you were coated in foam.

I hate that stuff.

I know. Well, we’ve only got another two months to go. We’ll be civilians after that.

Great!

Syrinx smiled in the cabin’s half light. I thought you liked military duty.

I do.

But?

But it’s lonely, all those patrols. When we’re on commercial runs we’ll meet lots of other voidhawks and habitats. It’ll be fun.

Yes, I suppose it will. It’s just that I would have liked to finish on a high note.

Joshua Calvert?

Yes! He was laughing at us.

I thought he was nice. Young and carefree, roaming the universe. Very romantic.

Please! He won’t be roaming it for much longer. Not with an ego like that. He’ll make a mistake soon enough, that sheer arrogance of his will force him into it. I’m only sorry we won’t be there when he does.she put an arm over Ruben so that he would know she wasn’t angry with him when he woke. But when she closed her eyes the normal vista of starfields that accompanied her into sleep had been replaced by a roguish smile and a rugged face that was all angles.

Chapter 13

His name was Carter McBride, and he was ten years old; an only child, the pride of his parents Dimitri and