Nicola Griffith - Ammonite

Silence.

“Relman?”

“So confused…” The words trailed off into a snore.

Danner stepped closer, looking down at her officer. Relman, who had seemed so young, so eager. Whom she had led to this. So confused …

Danner did not want anyone else to see Relman like this; she rolled up her sleeves.

When she left, the clings were at her belt, and Relman, clean and naked, was covered by a light sheet, sound asleep. Danner dropped the used pre-op patch in a receptacle and used her command code to lock the door. When she reached the end of the corridor, Kahn stood to attention, face carefully bland.

“Relman’s locked in. Check on her visually in about twenty minutes, then join us in the convalescent room.”

We don’t know why we’re here any more . Was Relman right? she wondered as she turned down another cheerfully painted corridor to meet Lu Wai and Dogias.

The pastel-toned room with its huge picture windows was empty. She watched the snow falling outside. We don’t know why we’re here any more . She had not been able to answer that at the time, but now, watching the snow, the alien sky just beyond the fragile glass of the window, she could. They were here to survive.

“Any way we can,” she murmured, as the door behind her opened.

“Any way we can what?” Dogias swung off her jacket, began to brush the melting snow from her hair.

“Survive.” Danner turned back to the window. She saw Dogias’s reflection sling her jacket over the back of a chair.

“Well, survival’s always a good place to start.” Dogias combed through her hair with her fingers. “Why do they keep these places so hot?” She wiped her wet hands down her hip shawl. “So, did our caged bird sing?”

“Eventually.”

Dogias gave her a hard look. “But?”

Danner sighed. “But I hated it, Letitia.” She would not tell Dogias about the drugs. That was between her and Relman. “What she said disturbed me. She thinks that what I’ve been doing, all the sensible precautions like reducing the guard duty—because who needs guards when the natives just want to stay away?—like letting things relax a little because we’re going to be here for… well, a long time at least… She thinks all my orders are designed to undermine us. To demoralize and confuse everyone. I’m beginning to think she might be right.”

“Well, I’m not confused.”

“No, but…”

“But what? Everything yo’ve done has made sense to me.”

“But is it the kind of thing another commander would have done?”

“Who cares? You’re the only commander w’ve got. You can have my opinion, if it matters to you. I think you’ve done much better than any other commander I can think of. After all, you’ve learned on the job; you’ve got the right skills; you haven’t tried to apply irrelevant rules to an extraordinary situation. You’ve put common sense and compassion before policy. The way I see it, that makes you a superb commander for the people here on the ground. It might not look too good to those who aren’t here. To Company hierarchy.” Dogias raised an eyebrow. “But we kind of knew that already.”

Danner’s smile was halfhearted. “I always thought that what I was doing was for the best. Relman’s a good officer. I wouldn’t have promoted her otherwise. But she doesn’t like what I’ve been doing. It scares her. How many others does it scare?”

Dogias tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “The situation scares us all. Those who are less brave than others will look to something, someone, concrete to blame.

Which means you: you’re the one giving orders that won’t let them hide behind the idea that this is like any other tour of duty. But some of us are brave, or at least brave enough not to blame you for everything.”

Dogias had a point, but there was more to it than that. “Everything I’ve done I’ve justified with logical-sounding reasons. But I’m beginning to suspect my own motives.” She took a deep breath. “I think, deep down, I wanted this to happen. I wanted to stay here, on Jeep.”

“You think you’re the only one?”

Danner did not know what to say to that.

Lu Wai and Kahn came in together, “I’ve been thinking,” Danner said abruptly, before they could do more than nod in Letitia’s direction. “We have a sublieutenant out of action. She needs to be replaced. Lu Wai, you are now promoted to sublieutenant, effective immediately.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Lu Wai stole a glance at Dogias, who shrugged.

“Officer Kahn, you are to assume the duties, rights and responsibilities of sergeant. Also effective immediately.”

Kahn nodded. “Ma’am.”

“Both of you will report directly to me, until I say otherwise. Your immediate superiors will be informed.”

Danner said nothing about formalities. They did not ask.

Given Company’s recent actions a ceremony, with its pledges of loyalty, would mean nothing.

“Sit down, please. All of you.” They did. Danner felt momentarily lost. Company doesn’t matter anymore; my commission means nothing . She took a seat among them: Letitia and Lu Wai sitting close together, Kahn picking something out from under a nail. Good women. Her silence lengthened. “I trust you,” she said eventually.

“I hope you trust me.” Another pause. “I need… I need your help to make some decisions.” Danner waited for the looks of pity or contempt—decision-making was her job, her burden, no one else’s—but their attentiveness did not waver. She wondered why she was finding this so hard. Trust them, she thought. Just trust them. “Dr. Hiam, on Estrade , and her two crew need to be brought down from orbit. I thought that between us, we could find a way to do it safely—without anyone on the Kurst being any the wiser. It goes without saying that the longer we can keep things here looking normal, the longer we have to organize ourselves before Company does whatever it is they’re going to do. Every extra day helps.”

Silence.

“Basically, we need to get the gig up there, on an apparently normal mission—”

“Taking someone up.”

“—and back down again, containing four people when it should only contain one pilot, without Kurst getting suspicious.”

“Why don’t we just ask around and see who wants to get off-planet, there’s bound to be someone, then send her up with the pilot?”

Danner shook her head. “I daren’t. The fewer who know about this and are in a position to communicate with the Kurst , the better.”

“Are you asking for one to us to volunteer, then?” Letitia asked slowly.

“Not yet.”

The silence was long. Danner watched the snow fall outside. Last winter, the snow had formed drifts of eight or nine feet in places. Hiam had assured her that this winter would be milder.

“What’s Kurst ’s position relative to Estrade? ” Kahn asked suddenly.

“I’m not sure.” Danner tapped a request into her comm. “Variable, according to this.”

“A regular variable?”

“Yes.”

“And are the two sometimes out of line-of-sight, obscured by Jeep itself?”

Danner tapped some more. “Yes.”

“Ha!” Dogias crowed, reaching over and poking Kahn on the thigh.“Ana, you’re a genius.” She turned to Danner. “How long would the two be out of line-of-sight?”

Danner sighed, and requested that information. “Six hours.”

“Long enough?” Dogias asked Kahn.

“Maybe,” the Mirror said thoughtfully. “Tight, though.”

“Maybe you two would like to explain.”

Kahn gestured for Dogias to take it. “The Kurst is a military vessel, equipped with the best in sensors and detection equipment. I should know, my assignment before Jeep was working on a cruiser’s systems. The only thing is, when the object you want to scan is obscured by a large body, you have to use a separate set of sensors, which need careful and exacting reprogramming, or”—she grinned—“rely upon rough data. Very rough data. If we send up the gig during this six-hour period, they’ll have to choose. So what they’ll do is check their rough data first.” She looked to Kahn for confirmation. The Mirror nodded. “All we have to do is make sure their rough data will satisfy them enough so that they don’t feel the need to go through all the trouble of the second, more accurate scan.” She stopped, pleased with herself.