Sarah Zettel: Reclamation

I wish to thank Doug Houseman, Leonard Zettel, Karen Fleming, and Timothy B. Smith for their expert technical help, the Untitled Writers Group for their infinite patience in reviewing so many revisions and Dawn Marie Sampson-Beresford, who always listens.

“We’re in.” Coming through the cargo bay’s intercom, Hellea’s tenor voice sounded watery.

Burig let out a sigh that deflated his paunch to half its normal size. The arms on his chair tightened around his midriff to compensate. A split second later, the hum filtering through the sterile deck plates from the third level drive fell silent. Now, the Alliance Runner drifted on nothing but its own momentum and Hellea’s calculations.

A series of sharp clicks sounded from across the bay as Ovin opened all the restraint catches on her own chair and shoved its arms out of the way. Burig smiled. Ovin hated being strapped down. Already she was pulling out drawers and raising wire racks up around the thaw-out table, jetting them ready for the equipment she would need to hang there if their find went into shock, or worse.

Burig shifted his weight so that the chair leaned him toward the intercom’s control board. He touched the VIEW key beside the flat screen set flush against the undecorated, blue tile wall. The familiar pattern of white spheres and gold lines that represented May 16’s system filled the too-small square. The Runner showed up as an out-of-proportion red dash floating between them. Burig rapped the image twice with his knuckle for thankfulness.

Ovin glanced curiously at him from between the forest of wires and monitor boxes she was building, but she didn’t say anything. The bay’s stark, white lights gave her profile a hard edge, despite her snub features. Burig tried to ignore her cool eyes. Instead he touched the CALL key for the bridge.

“Hellea,” he said toward the intercom, “how soon can you get me through to Director Dorias?”

“As soon as I set up a priority call for an open line,” came the reply. “Want it routed down here?”

“If you would.” Burig glanced past Ovin at the capsules. All of them waited dormant and dark in their racks, except the one humming and clicking gently by her elbow. “How far out are we?”

“This rate of drift, and all other things being equal, we’ll be putting in at Alliance Station in eight, maybe ten hours.”

“Thanks,” Burig said without any feeling. He shut the view screen off and swiveled the chair away from the wall. The restraints suddenly felt too tight around his waist. He thumbed the catches so the arms fell open to let him stand up.

“What’s the matter?” Ovin bent over the stacks of emergency gear next to the thaw-out table. Everything was switched on now, and at full ready. “Not soon enough for you?”

Burig leaned against the table and watched Ovin run through her checks. She kept her attention focused on the readouts as tightly as if she had a full hold and this was her first run. She had only stowed the loose systems that might be damaged in the event of a rough reentry into the system.

Everything else had stayed up and running for the whole trip. Captain Notch had bawled her out about wasting power at the beginning. Ovin had replied that if Notch wanted to risk the cargo, wanted to risk a life, he could drop the ship into a black hole, but he wouldn’t do it by intimidating her.

Burig had hidden his smile. Nobody tried to tell Imeran d’or dyn Ovin anything about her specialty more than once. It wasn’t worth it.

“I’m just going to be really glad when we can hand her over to somebody else,” Burig said. “This is too close to contraband running for me.”

“Got a flash for you, Subdirector.” Ovin looked down at her charge. “This is contraband running.”

Burig sighed again. From here, he could see through the polymer shell of the active capsule to the woman inside. The ragged patchwork she wore as clothing looked incongruous trapped under the network of tubes and wires that fed her drugs and nutrients and monitored her condition. The translucent blue of the tubes reflected against her clear, brown skin, making long pale streaks that ran perpendicular to the scars on the backs of her hands. A respiration mask covered her mouth and nose, but Burig couldn’t see her chest move at all.

“Well,” said Burig, not taking his gaze off the still figure, “it’s not like she’s really Family.”

Ovin pursed her thin lips and watched the data on the support screens. Her trained eye picked out the details of heart rhythm, eye movement, respiration, and brain activity. “That’s not what we’re telling the rest of the Quarter Galaxy.”

“Until we know what we’ve got and why the Rhudolant Vitae are so interested in them, we’ve got to say something. ” Burig stared at the screens. Technically, he knew what most of the symbolism stood for, but the jumble of letters, numbers, and colored lines kept flowing into fresh formations before he could make any real sense out of it. “This is not just another batch of cradlers’ descendants who’ve forgotten how to bang the rocks together. I’ve got an itch in the back of my head about this. This could be the future of the Human Family we’re carrying.”

“Or its past.” Ovin drew her fingers across the polymer right above the woman’s cheekbone. “That place is crashing old .”

Burig remembered the ragged canyon wall with the deep grooves wind and rain had gouged into the bare, rust red stone.

“Crashing’s the word for it…”

The intercom’s chime cut off the rest of his sentence. Burig rounded the thaw-out table and perched on the edge of the chair just as the screen lit up again. This time, it showed the image of Director Dorias Waesc. Burig had never met him in the flesh, but whenever he saw the Director on screen he thought of Dorias as “the Medium Man.” Dorias had a medium build, medium brown skin and hair, a face suggesting medium age, and a sense of humor that was moderately acute.

“Good to see you, Subdirector Burig,” said Dorias. “How’d things work out?”

“Lu and Jay came through for us, Director,” Burig said with more enthusiasm than he felt. “We got what we went after.”

“How’s he doing?” Dorias’s image leaned closer to the screen as he tried to see across the room.

“She"—Burig slid the visual unit out of the wall and swiveled it around so Dorias could have a better view—"is knocked out in a life-support capsule.”

Dorias frowned. “Was that necessary?”

Burig shrugged. “It was how we got her from Jay. I thought it’d be easier to leave her in there until we got someplace that might require a little less explanation than an intersystem ship.”

Dorias did not look convinced. “She is a volunteer, isn’t she?”

“That’s what Jay says.” Burig tried to read what was going on behind the Director’s eyes. “Is there a problem?”

“No,” said Dorias. Burig was pretty sure he was lying. “You’re what, five hours out, six?”

Burig shook his head. “Eight to ten.”

Dorias rolled his eyes. “All right. I’ve had a request from Madame Chairman to keep you on the line until you get in-system, so I hope you and your relief are feeling talkative.”

Burig looked across at Ovin. Her mouth tightened until it was nothing but a thin, straight line.

“Expecting something to go wrong?” Ovin called toward the screen.

“Always,” said Dorias. “It’s part of my job.”