When I left her a few hours ago, Chiraine had been deep in her analysis of the new node, trying to locate the position of A419.
“We’re not seeing much on the flyby in the way of technology,” I told her. “But Maridu seems to be populated. And someone is still using that landing strip.”
“It’s got to be here—in this quadrant. I know that.” She was nervously running her finger along the resonator, almost caressing the orb-shaped biklode.
“But you can’t pinpoint it exactly, like you did the last one? We need coordinates.”
She looked up at me. “It took me two years—almost three—to pinpoint A782. The nodes are different, of course, but a complete recreation of this part of the Ambit isn’t something I can do on the fly.”
“You need Yates to help?”
“There’s only one thing I need right now.” She handed me her empty mug. “More moxa.”
Between fetching drinks and reporting back and forth between Ana-Zhi and Chiraine, a thought came to me. I returned to the bridge, but found it unattended. It turned out everyone except Chiraine was in the galley, having lunch.
“So I have an idea,” I said, sitting down at the table.
“Dynark help us,” Ana-Zhi said, munching on a piece of sunshine toast. “The newbie has an idea.”
“No, let the captain talk,” Yates said.
“What if we just take the Raker into that town? The place isn’t that big. Surely it would be able to find this new node.”
“What are you proposing, mon capitaine? That we go house to house?” Obarral asked.
“Or just walk down the street.”
Galish shook his head. “Bad idea. We don’t know anything about the Batalarians and I’m not inclined to get shot at again.”
“You’ve got ceramlar body armor, don’t you?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you what, big boy. Yates’ll teach you how to run the Raker and you go in there. How about that?”
Before I could answer, Chiraine rushed into the room. She was out of breath. “Come quick!”
“You okay?” I asked. “What’s going on?”
“There’s someone at the door.”
8
All of us followed Chiraine as she rushed across the ship to the launch bay. Off in one corner was the man door and airlock.
“I heard banging from in here and I looked out that window there,” she said. “I think he’s still out there.”
We crowded around a porthole. Outside was a human male leaning against some sort of mechanized cart. He wore dusty clothes and a wide-brimmed hat, which was tilted down shading his grizzled face.
“What the hell?” Ana-Zhi muttered.
“That’s impossible!” Galish said.
He was right. There weren’t supposed to be any humans in this system.
“You want me to kill?” Xooth said. “I shoot with ion lance. Sizzle good!”
“Hang on,” Ana-Zhi said. She pointed at me. “Captain, let’s go back to the bridge and see if we can communicate with this schmuff. The rest of you, strap on a sidearm and wait by a comm station.”
“You’re not thinking of letting him in, are you?” Chiraine asked.
Ana-Zhi gave her a withering look, then motioned me towards the corridor. She looked back at the rest of the crew. “What are you all waiting for, people? Let’s go. Arm up.”
Back at the bridge, Ana-Zhi activated the hull cameras near the launch bay.
“Could he be from the Mayir expedition?” I asked.
“That’s as good a guess as any. But then, where the hell is his ship? We would have seen it. The Rhya would never allow a full-size cloaking device through the Fountain.”
She steered one of the cameras towards the man and zoomed in on his face. He was a tall rangy man who looked to be in his fifties, with bright blue eyes and lots of squint lines etched into his sunburnt skin. His face was lean and angular, all hard planes, with a few scars. The biggest ran from the edge of his nose diagonally down towards the corner of his mouth.
“Not someone you want to meet in a dark alley,” I muttered.
“Speak for yourself,” Ana-Zhi said. She punched a button and spoke into a microphone in the console.
“Intruder, identify yourself.”
The man looked up lazily and ran his eyes along the ship. Probably trying to find our camera. It took him a second. The he turned to face us, and looked directly in the lens.
“My name is Wade Murroux. And I was hoping to bargain for a ride off this rock.”
Ana-Zhi and I looked at each other.
“From your accent, it doesn’t sound like you’re from around here,” Ana-Zhi said.
“That’s for damn sure. I hail from Beesan Prime.”
“Well, what’s your story, Wade Murroux from Beesan Prime?”
Murroux licked his lips. “Any chance I could tell you that story inside—and out of the sun? I’d be much obliged.”
“That would be a negative, Mr. Murroux. And, in fairness, I should disclose that we have a Renegade 50/04 trained on you with a jumpy Plargond on the trigger. So state your piece and don’t try anything.”
Murroux slowly held his hands up to show that he was unarmed. “I don’t want no trouble. Just a bit of human kindness.”
“Your story, Mr. Murroux? Or vacate the area posthaste.”
“Okay, okay. Fair enough. As I said, my name is Wade Murroux and I came here in 2339 as part of the Valerius II’s crew. I’m a medic by trade. Me and another crew member decided not to go back so we jumped ship. Narcissa, her name was. She was in some trouble back on Beesan and figured a new life here might be worth a shot. I liked the way she looked at me and decided to go with her. We were going to be Adam and Eve and make a bunch of babies and figure out how to farm a little piece of this dusthole.”
“Where’s the missus and all those babies?” Ana-Zhi asked. “Don’t tell me you’re planning on running out on her?”
“Truth is, she ran out on me. And none of those babies came to be, though it wasn’t for lack of
