It slid open and he stepped into the corridor. The air had a slightly metallic odor that was unfamiliar— something the environmental systems hadn’t yet cleaned out.
“Am I the only one on the ship?” he asked.
“Yes,” the ship said.
He cursed. He thought of grabbing a weapon, but decided against it. There was no point. If the images he had seen were accurate, there were too many people surrounding his ship. A weapon would only make him seem desperate and might, in fact, put him in danger.
Instead, he hurried through the empty corridor to the bridge.
It was empty. A small black holo-emitter sat beneath the pilot’s seat. The woman’s image, looking almost real, filled the chair itself. She had to have sat there at some point to get such a clean image.
She was shapely, her body stronger than most that spent a lot of time in space. She had muscular legs and powerful arms, visible through the ripped top she wore. The image smiled at him. The blue lines on her face were less disturbing when the rest of her body was attached.
“Hadad Yu,” she said. “The Black Fleet thanks you. While we will not return the flowering fidelia to you, we are forever in your debt.”
The Black Fleet.
He had thought they were a myth, something made up to scare Recovery Men and other solo travelers. The stories were wide and varied, but they all boiled down to one fact:
When a ship was filled with valuable cargo, it would find itself at the mercy of the Black Fleet. Sometimes the Black Fleet killed the occupants; sometimes it stole the ship.
“You’re in
The woman smiled. The image had been programmed to respond to simple—and expected—queries.
“We would not be here without your expertise. We have used that expertise many times without your knowledge. After a while, even we feel guilty at not paying for a service.” Her smile grew. “And now, thanks to you, we can afford to be magnanimous. So we honor that with a one-time debt, payable in anything except the return of the flowering fidelia.”
She touched a hand to her forehead, and the image winked out.
He wanted to pick up the box and fling it across the bridge. But he knew better. The box could provide him with some answers. It also was the only proof he had of this debt. Not only that, he suspected the box had a way to contact the Fleet built-in.
If the rumors about the Black Fleet were true, then the rumors about its attitude toward debts were true too. The Black Fleet honored all debts, considered them life debts, and as such they were quite valuable.
He stared at the box. He supposed he could tap it for its secrets. Maybe the box itself provided him with the answers he needed—not just to the Black Fleet itself, but also how its members got on board his ship.
But he wasn’t going to examine the box now. Instead, he walked to the room beside the bridge.
The door swished open to reveal complete darkness. The flowering fidelia’s light had gone out. He wasn’t sure what was worse: the idea that the flower had died or the idea that the Black Fleet had stolen it from him.
“Lights up 10 percent,” he said.
They came up slowly, revealing an empty room.
The container, with the fidelia inside, was gone.
He nodded. Then blinked at an unaccustomed moistness in his eyes.
“Ship,” he said. “How long has the fidelia been gone?”
“Two hours,” the ship said.
“What about the Fleet surrounding us?”
“It was here for thirty minutes.”
“Why didn’t you wake me?”
“You left no such instructions,” the ship said.
He opened his mouth to argue, then paused. While it was true he had left no instructions to wake him during that nap, it wasn’t true that the ship had no instructions about waking him.
It was supposed to wake him whenever a ship was in the vicinity, or if someone or something was trying to communicate with him.
The ship certainly should have awakened him if someone tried to board.
“Can you show me what the intruders did after they entered?” he asked.
“Certainly.” The ship displayed the same image that it had when it had awakened him—all of the ships surrounding the
They tampered with his systems. Now he had to figure out whether they had tampered before or after they boarded.
“May I see what happened after they left?” he asked.
“They have not left,” the ship said.
His stomach clenched. All of the messages suggested that they had left. Everything they had done suggested they were long gone.
He walked to the nearest porthole and looked out. He saw no ship. He went to the next porthole. No ship.
They had tampered with his systems. His ship still believed it was surrounded.
He needed to get around whatever blocks they had put into his shipboard computer. He tried a different question, one the Black Fleet probably wouldn’t think of.
“Is there some kind of trail that suggests that ships have left the vicinity?”
“Yes,” the ship said. “More than a dozen ships have departed this area in the last twenty-four Earth hours.”
A dozen ships, like the ones on the screen.
“When did they leave?” he asked.
“I cannot tell from the trails, but they should thin within twelve hours. They have not.”
“Can we follow them?”
“You have programmed in a rendezvous point and time. If you wish to make the scheduled point and time, then we cannot follow.”
He didn’t want to see Athenia. “Even if the ships are close?”
“They are not close. I can track the trails past this solar system. To chase them would mean you would miss any possibility of the rendezvous.”
“Can we find them if we follow?” Yu wasn’t sure what he would do if he caught up, but he was contemplating an attempt.
“I do not know.”
“Did the ships leave at the same time?”
“Judging by the trails, they did.”
“And head in the same direction?”
“Yes,” the ship said.
“Can you make a map of these trails for me and plot a possible trajectory based on their directions?”
“Yes.”
“Save that for me,” he said. “I might need it.”
He looked at the maps themselves, then at the images of the ships. If the images were accurate, he would have had no chance of going up against them even if he had weapons. Every one of those ships could destroy his.
They got the better of him and he knew it.
So he headed to the rendezvous point. Athenia was the only chance he had. Her employees were scattered all over the known universe. She might be able to get someone to chase those ships and capture them before the bloom on the flowering fidelia died.
