Sarah Zettel - Fool's War

All of which was, of course, impossible. She could only make her way down the curving corridor that had been wrapped in bristly, brown velcro everywhere there wasn’t a green memory board or a door. Short, narrow hallways branched off here and there, leading to holding areas or workspaces that were little more than blisters in the station’s hull. Men and women in sturdy tan coveralls bearing no sign or sigil of allegiance or religion filtered through gaggles of shippers with packs on their shoulders or bundles in their hands. The total lack of marking was the badge of The Gate crew. They went about their tasks with the kind of intensity that came either from concentration or boredom. Every now and again she and Lipinski had to step aside for an automated cart rolling down the corridor, crunching the carpeting under its soft wheels.

Maybe Yerusha should stay aboard the Pasadena , thought Al Shei as she and Lipinski skirted another tool cart. There’s almost more to see there.

Al Shei understood the need for the total neutrality of their surroundings. The Farther Kingdom needed a functioning port in order to be a functioning world, and that port had to belong to the whole colony. Like any station, though, it would have a crew confined to cramped quarters for a long time. There could not be any risk of feuds that were old before the Fast Burn breaking out up here.

The Farther Kingdom worked, but not easily. Even Resit did not pretend to understand the treaties that governed it. Besides The Gate, there was one other permanent station in orbit around the colony and that one held their diplomatic corps. It housed over eight hundred representatives whose entire lives were spent in the negotiations that kept the peace.

The Farther Kingdom had been founded while the Slow Burn was still going on. Not surprisingly, it had a large Islamic population. Several of Al Shei’s ancestors had emigrated there to save their lives as well as their faith. But so had people from a hundred other faiths. While all the settlers knew they would be living cheek by jowl with people who had been their grandparent’s enemies, the reality of it hit hard sometimes. There had been several full-scale wars, before the diplomatic corps was formed and the formal treaties put into place.

It was a world of pacifists, traditionalists, recluses and fanatics. It was one of the most brittle colonies, but it was also one of the most ambitious and it had somehow managed to survive its own problems for two hundred years.

Terse signs written in five languages guided them to the shuttle docks. They joined the queue of other shippers waiting for passage. Resit spotted them from further up in the line. She waved and then rolled her eyes and opened her hands to Heaven, seeking patience.

Al Shei queued up behind Lipinski and concentrated on reminding herself they had to be patient, that she was the one who decided they all needed a moment’s rest before tackling the problem of flushing the ship’s systems, and that shifting her weight from foot to foot was not doing anything to speed up the line.

Lipinski’s brooding silence was not helping anything. She could almost believe he really was reading the boards of security information that covered the far wall. By the time they reached the head of the line, Al Shei was beginning to get genuinely concerned. Lipinski’s style was to talk to everyone and everything within earshot, not to brood in silence.

Well, you are not exactly encouraging him, Al Shei reminded herself. Her tired mind tried to come up with a neutral conversational opening, but by the time she decided on “Have you ever been to New Medina, Lipinski?” they had reached the arched security gate.

The line was funnelled through the narrow, off-white space. Al Shei could identify only half-a-dozen of the scanners contained in the ceramic frame. They were looking for weapons, controlled ingestibles or literatures, any encrypted recordings, or any sealed cameras. Dobbs had joked that the members of The Farther Kingdom diplo-corps were funding one final scanner to make their security program complete, except it was proving fiendishly hard to make one that could read minds.

A low chime sounded and the station’s AI spoke up in a clear, contralto voice from the top of the arch. “Passenger Rurik Lipinski will please step to Terminal 12 to supply further information.”

“All right, all right.” Lipinski tightened his grip on his tool kit. “You want to know what I’ve got in the box. I know the drill, and I’ve registered all of it.”

“All information must be directed to the security terminal,” replied the station. Al Shei suppressed a smile. Lipinski turned towards her and with an exaggerated grimace, bit his tongue.

Al Shei shook her head as he marched over towards the clusters of security booths. She wondered if the AI had a special sub-routine to deal with malcontents.

Probably. The Farther Kingdom has not managed this long by being sloppy.

The AI might do the talking, but alert crew members stood at regular intervals along the corridor. They weren’t carrying any weapons Al Shei could see, but that meant little.

No one else in the immediate vicinity seemed to be carrying anything identifiably objectionable, so the alarms and the station’s AI kept silent. Al Shei moved out from under the arch, trying hard not to step on the heels of the people in front of her.

The shuttle waiting at the end of the airlock was as basic as the station. It was a single stage rocket designed for nothing more than short flights. Al Shei strapped herself into a seat that in the local gravity made her feel like she was lying on her back with her knees trying to curl up into her chest.

“Five minutes to launch,” said a voice that was a twin to the one in the security arch. “Please consult your individual seats to make sure your straps are arranged for maximum safety and comfort.”

There was a buzzing of soft, mechanical voices around her. Al Shei had no intention of consulting her seat about anything. There was nothing it could do to make itself something other than cramped and undignified.

At last, Lipinski climbed through the forward hatch and shuffled to his seat. His duffle and tool kit were still in his possession, so he must really have registered everything properly. Al Shei tried to tell herself she had not expected anything less, but too much had gone wrong since they left the Solar system for her to make that really stick in her mind.

Then came the predictable half-dozen announcements: two minutes to launch, check your straps, security monitors are fully operational in case there are problems, if you have any questions, consult your seat immediately, thirty seconds to launch, ten, nine, eight…

A soft grating sounded under the floor and the ship fell away from the station. Al Shei’s body told her she fell with it. The couch was no longer uncomfortable, it was only gently swaddling. Al Shei’s joints began to relax, even though her stomach lurched at the sudden absence of gravity.

Al Shei hated shuttle flights. They were a boring interval in between events. Usually, however, it took fifteen or twenty minutes before the irritation build up. This time, though, they hadn’t been in free fall for ten seconds before she fidgeted with her chafing straps, drummed her fingers against her chair arms, and let her gaze dart around her tiny space, looking moodily for something to distract her.

There was a memory board and a view screen in front of her. She could call up some entertainment, or work over the Pasadena ’s schedule one more time and see if she could get an optimistic projection to hang her hopes on.

Or she could just hang here and try for the thousandth time to understand why Ruqaiyya had married Marcus Tully.