The Aftermath

The old woman and the priest were the only crew aboard Hunter. Kill them, Valker said to himself, and then their ship is yours again, free and clear.

He laughed as Elverda kissed him on both cheeks before leaving Vogeltod.

* * *

Tamara was lying on the bunk in her compartment, watching the wall screen. It showed Hunter disengaging from the little salvage vessel. Small puffs of cold gas jets pushed Hunter away from the smaller ship for a quarter of an hour. She listened to the radio chatter between the cyborg, who was apparently piloting Hunter, and Yuan, on Viking’s bridge.

“We’re ready to light the main engine,” came Dorn’s deep, methodical voice.

A moment’s pause, then Yuan said, “You’re clear for ignition.”

Tamara saw a flash of blue-hot ionized gas and Hunter seemed to leap out of her vision, hurtling deeper into the Belt.

She counted the seconds. It took Yuan only thirty-four of them to get to her compartment’s accordion door and rap on its frame.

“Come in,” she called.

He slid the door open and ducked one single step into her quarters. “I thought you’d want to know that we’re heading in now.”

“To Ceres,” she replied.

He grinned at her. “No. To Selene. Headquarters. Humphries wants to see us. Both of us.”

BOOK III SIX MONTHS LATER

Nor blame I Death, because he bare
The use of virtue out of earth:
I know transplanted human worth
Will bloom to profit, otherwhere.

ORE SHIP SYRACUSE: BACKUP COMMAND POD

The pod was more of a home to Theo than his own quarters. He spent most of his free time in it, watching over Syracuse’s slowly failing systems, nursing the old bucket along day by excruciating day.

He was well past eighteen now, taller than his mother. His body had filled out some; he was growing into manhood.

Less than six months remaining, he said to himself as he checked the navigation display. We’re on our way back to Ceres. Will we make it?

He remembered seeing an old novel about a man who tries to go around the world—Earth, of course—in ninety days. Or was it eighty? The story was set a couple of centuries ago, and at one point the character is sailing across the Atlantic Ocean in a steam-powered ship. But they run out of coal for the steam boiler. So he has the crew cannibalize the ship’s wooden structure, tearing the planks apart until there’s nothing left above water but the ship’s steel skeleton, its boiler, engine and paddle wheel.

That’s what we’re doing, Theo told himself. Cannibalizing old Syracuse as we limp back to port. It’s a race to see if we can get to Ceres before the old bucket falls apart.

One hundred and sixty-seven days, he read off the ship’s navigation computer screen. If my calculations are right. If I haven’t messed up somewhere. One hundred and sixty-seven days to go.

Theo had taught himself a fair amount of astronomy over the past three-plus years. With all the ship’s antennas out, he could not receive guidance signals from Ceres or anywhere else. Nor could he probe ahead with radar. It was impossible to determine where the ship was, or even its heading, through the ordinary electronic systems. So Theo learned the stars from the ship’s library and learned to navigate by them. Using the stars, he kept Syracuse on its course back to Ceres.

He hoped.

At the moment, his attention was focused on their dwindling water supply. He had strictly rationed the water he, his sister and mother used. Angela had accused him of being a tyrant more than once. But Mother had merely smiled and accepted his estimates of how much water they could afford to use for drinking, for cooking, for bathing.

The recyclers aren’t perfect, he told his sister time and again. We’re losing water every day.

And without water for the fusion reactor their electrical power would fail. No electricity meant death: no power for the air recycler, no lights, no heat. They would freeze in the dark. Or suffocate.

So Theo shut down the sections of the ship they weren’t using. Only this backup command pod and their living quarters received electrical power and breathable air. And the tube-tunnels connecting them. The rest of the ship was dark and airless.

The water recycler. It was Theo’s daily burden. Every day he climbed clown the tunnel to the equipment bay where the fusion reactor sat side by side with the recyclers and the now dormant main propulsion engine. Every day he nursed the cranky collection of pipes and filters, cleaning its grids tenderly, patching leaks in the connection seals, stealing sections of pipe from other parts of the ship and cannibalizing parts for the recycler’s electrical motors.

He dreamed at night that he was trapped in the maze of piping, sloshing in water that was spurting from the recycler, going to waste, gushing across the deck and out into empty space. Once he dreamt that the water’s inexorable current carried him outside the ship, too. He woke in a cold sweat, shivering. And berated himself for wasting the water of his perspiration.

Angela stepped through the hatch of the command pod.

“Reporting for duty,” she said, with a crisp salute and a challenging grin.

Theo glanced at the digital clock. “You’re three and a half minutes early, Angie.”

“Early bird gets the worm,” she said.

“But who wants worms?”

They both laughed. Theo got up from the command chair and Angela slid into it lightly. They had all lost weight on their enforced diet, but Angie had slimmed down best of all. She looked fine to Theo, a real beauty now.

“Any problems?” she asked, her eyes scanning the control board. Most of the telltale lights were dark now; only the systems they absolutely needed for survival were still functioning.

“Everything’s percolating along,” Theo replied.

“Mom’s got a problem with the microwave again,” Angie said. “She thinks she can fix it, but you ought to give her a hand.”

“Gotcha,” said Theo. “After I check the beast.”