Nexus by Robert Boyczuk (best large ebook reader txt) 📕

“Who put the screamers there in the first place?” The Facilitator made no attempt to mask his anger. “Somebody had to do that!”

“You’re right,” Sav answered. “But I don’t think survivors-if there were any-put them up. I think Nexus put them there.”

The notion drew Liis’ attention away from Josua; Sav hadn’t mentioned this to her before. “Nexus? Why would they want to put satellites here? We’re not an affiliate world.”

“No,” Sav answered. “We’re not. But the broadcasts are in forty-three languages. I counted. Most I couldn’t identify, but of the ones I could, all were from Nexus affiliates. The Facilitator here can verify that, I’m sure.” Sav paused to look at the tall man, whose eyelids flickered briefly while he retrieved information; he nodded glumly.

“Second, those satellites are only a few meters across, but they’re messing up our onboard systems pretty good. I’ve had to shut down the more sensitive equipment, and I’ve been shielding the cabling for the rest so I can keep it online. Do you know what kind of power it takes to generate a signal like that over this distance? More power than we can imagine. Terawatts at least. And they’re doing it constantly. We had nothing like that when we left. But I’ve heard of similar technology. Near Nexus affiliates.”

Sav looked around the table. “It’s not inconceivable that the Polyarchy placed them here a long time ago. We left over thirty years ago, and the nearest Nexus world, Doelavin, is only two light years away. If the plague hit just after we left, then they could have launched the satellites as much as twenty-eight years ago-the thirty years we were gone less the time it would have taken a radio transmission to reach Doelavin with news of the plague. I might have done the same if I was that close. To warn people off.” Sav paused. “And maybe to keep an eye on who’s been through here in case they showed up at my doorstep.”

“What you are telling us,” Hebuiza said with a sneer, “is if we decide to go elsewhere, we will have been marked as plague carriers. And turned away!”

“Turned away would be the best we could hope for.”

Sav, Liis noted, wasn’t making much of an effort to hide his irritation at the Facilitator.

Hebuiza’s expression abruptly went flat. “They lied to us.”

“What are you talking about?” Sav said. “Who lied to us?”

“At Arcolet.” The anger built in the Facilitator’s voice as he spoke. “They negotiated as though nothing was wrong. But they had to have known about the plague long before we arrived. They just didn’t want to tell us. They were afraid we might want to stay!”

Talk, Liis thought bitterly. It’s all talk. What did any of it matter now? She looked at Hebuiza. “So what? There’s not a damn thing we can do about it.” She looked at Josua, whose head was still bowed, then at Sav. “There’s not a damn thing we can about anything.”

“And,” Sav added, “we have other, more immediate concerns. We only have enough fuel to achieve half a percent of c at best, hardly a decent cruising velocity. Which means we can’t go anywhere in less than a few hundred years. Besides which, these ships don’t carry a lot of reserve supplies. Including food and atmosphere for the times we’re not in stasis.”

“Then we’re going down to the surface.”

Josua’s voice startled Liis. She turned to see his head was raised now. He lifted his hands from his lap and placed them flat on the table. “We have no choice.” For the first time Josua looked directly at Liis; his eyes burned with…with what? Frustration? Anger? Rage? Liis couldn’t be sure.

“Well?”

It took her a moment to realize he was waiting for her to answer. Liis nodded.

“Sav?” Josua asked tonelessly.

“Don’t see we have much of a choice.”

“Facilitator?”

Liis looked up at the Hebuiza; she watched him grind his long jaws together in displeasure. His whole body seemed to quiver, but he didn’t answer.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Josua said. “Then it’s settled.” He looked at Sav. “What now?”

It shouldn’t have bothered Liis that Josua looked to Sav. But it did. Sav was nominally the captain of the Ea, even though Liis had flown far more longhauls. In normal circumstances, they shared duties equally, trading off when they got bored. If anything, Sav seemed embarrassed by his rank, and stepped back from it as much as possible. And so they’d gotten along fine, managing to fly four missions together without any major blowups. Only now….

“Okay,” Sav said, nodding at Josua. He chewed his lower lip in thought for a second. “You and Liis take a look at the EVA suits. We don’t know if there’s still a danger of infection down there, so we’ll need to use them. See what you can do about making them as comfortable as possible for one-gee work. And check to see if the screamers interfere with suit-to-suit communications. If they do, you’ll have to set up a circuit to oscillate the suit transmitters through lockstep frequency shifts. Once we’re on the surface there should be enough of a time lag time before the screamers sense our signals and wipe them out by broadcasting that damn warning. If we shift every few milliseconds or so, we should be okay.” He turned to Hebuiza. “We’ll also need whatever decontamination procedures we can manage. And antimicrobials. In fact, we should check the manifests to see what other useful things we’ve got along. That’s going to be our job.”

“Where?” Liis asked, looking around the table, her eyes lingering on Josua. “Where are we going to land?”

“At Lyst,” Josua answered without hesitation. “The cryosuspension facility.” She waited, they all waited, for something more, for Josua to explain himself. “Survivors,” Josua said, perspiration beading on his forehead even though the galley was cold. “There might still be warm bodies in suspension.”

The Facilitator frowned. “But we’ve detected no signatures that would indicate power sources anywhere, including Lyst.”

“They have backup power systems,” Sav said. “Passive solar arrays whose signatures would be undetectable.”

“A long shot,” Hebuiza said with a sniff. “If anywhere, we should be heading to an urban centre. That is where we are most likely to find records and supplies.”

“No,” Josua said.

“No?” Liis could see the Facilitator fight to restrain his agitation at what he thought a stupid suggestion. It was evident in the tightness at the corners of his mouth, in the set of his shoulders and arms. “It will be a critical waste of time.”

“No,” Josua said again, “It’s our best bet.” He curled his hands into fists.

“It is our worst!” Hebuiza shot back. “If we were to revive any survivors“-and here he paused, curling his lips in disdain like the word survivors tasted sour on his tongue-“we might be exposing ourselves to the plague!”

Josua blinked, looking uncertain, as if he hadn’t thought of this.

Hebuiza turned to Sav. “It is clear that Josua is not thinking right. So I ask you, as captain, to-”

“He’s right,” Liis said, cutting off the Facilitator. “If we have any hope of finding out what happened, of finding any systems still up and running, it’s got to be at a cryo facility. Those places were built to last.” She turned to Sav, silently imploring his support.

For a moment he looked at her, like he was trying to figure something out. Then he shrugged. “I’m with Josua and Liis.”

The Facilitator looked flabbergasted. “Are you all mad? We should putting as much distance between ourselves and the plague as possible. Not heading right towards it!”

“We’re going to Lyst to look for records and supplies,” Sav said with finality. “We’re not going to revive anyone.”

Josua paled and lowered his head; he looked ill. Without thinking, Liis reached across the table and gave his hand a reassuring squeeze; he looked up startled. Shocked even. Untangling his fingers from hers, he withdrew his hand brusquely.

Liis’ let her empty fingers curl into her palm, like the legs of a dying insect. He’s in shock, she thought, withdrawing her hand. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. Still, she felt her face coloring, knew this would throw her scars into dramatic relief. She lowered her head.

“Let’s get started,” Sav said.

Josua stood abruptly. “Fine.” He turned and walked from the room.

The Facilitator stared at Sav. Then at Liis. He opened his mouth like he was about to speak, to raise another objection; but instead he snapped it shut and strode after Josua, his long legs driving him forward, his whole body swaying slightly as his head swung from side to side, leaving Sav and Liis alone in the cabin.

Liis started to push herself to her feet, but Sav didn’t move from his, effectively blocking her way.

He caught her eye. “You okay?”

Liis let herself collapse back into her seat. How the hell do you think I’m doing? she thought. But all she said was, “Fine.”

“You sure?”

Liis felt him scrutinizing her, evaluating her. “I said I was fine.”

“Coming back to find your home gone is…is a shock.” He paused, as if he were fishing for a reaction to his absurd understatement. Liis remained silent. “It’s going to effect us all in ways we can’t even predict. So we need to look out for one another.”

Liis still said nothing.

Sav sagged in his chair; he looked exhausted. “I won’t lie to you. I’m worried. Hebuiza’s a Facilitator. He’s been trained to hide his emotion. But look at how edgy he was just now. And Josua, God knows how this is effecting him. You and me, even Hebuiza, we’re experienced longhaulers. In a way, we were already disconnected from Bh’Haret. Not like Josua. This was his first trip. It’s going to hit him harder.”

It already has, Liis thought. There was no mistaking it.

“I need you to keep an eye on him. To make sure he doesn’t…he isn’t….”

Liis’ heart stopped. She hadn’t considered this possibility. “Suicidal?”

“Yes.”

Liis felt a surge of anger; she curled her hands into fists. “He’ll be okay.”

“Don’t let you feelings cloud your judgement.”

Liis was taken aback. “What do you mean by that?”

“I’m not blind. I can see how you look at him.”

Liis’ cheeks grow hot. “You’re wrong.”

“Maybe.” Sav wiggled out from between the table and chair and pushed himself to his feet. He placed a hand on Liis’ shoulder. “Look out for him. But give him some room. Now…now is not the time to complicate things.” His voice sounded weary, and his face, normally round and full, seemed thin and drained. “God knows we all have enough to worry about as it is.”

A few hours after their meeting, the ship issued its zero-gee warning, and the main engine cut out as they slipped into orbit around Bh’Haret.

The preparations took only a few hours more, not because they hurried through them, but because there was, in the end, very little to be done. Sav and Hebuiza checked the Ea‘s manifest, gathered what equipment might be of use, stockpiling it in the dropship. Other than two suit patch kits, a toolbox, a medical kit, and several spare oxygen/nitrogen cartridges, there wasn’t much else they could find to bring along. Liis and Josua meanwhile had managed to reprogram the transceivers in their suits to