Нэнси Кресс - If Tomorrow Comes

“Yes, sir,” Leo and Kandiss said simultaneously. Zoe moved restlessly in her sick bunk. “Sir, Berman here. I can—”

“Negative, Berman. Stay where you are.”

Kandiss was already out the door. Leo said over his shoulder, “Probably nothing will happen anyway.”

“Yeah,” Zoe said unhappily. “Probably not.”

Nothing did, at least not until morning. Leo stood in full gear at his station in the corridor by the shuttle bay door, ready to defend it against nothing, and stared at the wall screen in the corridor. They were all over, those screens, so that nobody missed anything. Or maybe the screens were also security cameras watching the corridors—he didn’t know.

The wall screen showed the planet getting bigger and bigger. The Friendship must be going really fast. Now you could see the one big continent coming over the horizon, scattered islands around it like water spiders on a pond. Probably now the planet would resume communications with the Friendship . Weird that they’d stopped during the night.

Kandiss had said “Maybe religion,” which Leo thought meant some bizarre-o thing where everybody had to not bother the gods during the dark hours. Berman thought maybe they had iron discipline, with no talking after lights out. “For the whole planet ?” Leo had said. “That doesn’t seem realistic.” Berman had said maybe it wasn’t realistic, but how realistic was it that the Kindred never had wars and had only one culture? Dr. Bourgiba had once started to explain about how a small group of humans had been taken to Kindred 140,000 years ago and how they happened to be both genetically similar and basically passive types, until he’d noticed that none of the Rangers was listening to him. Bourgiba knew a lot, was really smart, but Leo thought the doctor was also somehow… hard to put a word to it… not all together. Inside. No, that wasn’t right—Bourgiba wasn’t nuts. It just sometimes felt like for all his smoothness, there was nobody really home.

Leo was getting sleepy. This battle watch came on top of a full day’s duty and he hadn’t slept in twenty-two hours. Well, shit, that wasn’t so long. At Ranger School he’d done Camp Darby on three hours sleep a night, doing hard physical labor instead of just guarding a shuttle bay against nothing. Although…

Shit. He’d been asleep on his feet. Only for a few seconds, but if Owen or the colonel had seen it… Worse, he had a flash-dream of Berman, naked. Which was weird because he didn’t really want her, despite those long legs and slim waist and firm breasts. Despite that face. He couldn’t figure out why, either. Now, that Dr. Patel—

Clang! Clang! Clang!

“Prepare for possible attack,” Captain Lewis said through the wall screen. “Repeat—” At the same moment Leo’s wrister said, “Code one. Code one,” in Owen’s voice, and the wall screen in front of Leo glowed with another ship, shaped exactly like theirs, hurtling toward Kindred.

Salah stood on the bridge behind the ambassador’s chair, the backup translator. The official English-Russian translator, Gonzalez’s chief-of-staff William Bentley III, should have been doing this, but the ambassador had already made her decision. Bentley was on his way to his quarters.

Just in case, Gonzalez had said.

The Russian ship should not even exist. That was what the world had been told: the Stremlenie had been destroyed. But here it was, appearing from nowhere, erupting into space just as the Friendship must have done. Gonzalez spoke in Russian, hailing the Stremlenie , identifying herself and her mission. There was no answer.

The Stremlenie continued toward the planet.

Salah knew the history of this ship. Everyone knew the history of this ship. Russia had lost the genetic lottery no one had known would occur: a widespread allele in that already starving country had caused many more fatalities among Slavs than anyone else. The devastation from the spore cloud, plus climate change and totalitarian politics, had bred a virulent hatred of Kindred. Those Russian scientists who pointed out that the aliens had not actually caused the spore cloud were disbelieved, or shot. The aliens and the spore cloud arrived in tandem, therefore the cloud was a weapon aimed at Terra, and the Western countries were too deluded or soft or blinded to see that. The classified name for the Stremlenie , which had been made public only after the United States had barely averted Terra’s first space battle, was Mest’ : the Revenge .

“ Friendship to Stremlenie …”

A burst of Russian. Salah translated for Captain Lewis, Engineer Volker, pilot Lieutenant Yi, and Colonel Matthews. “‘ Friendship , this is Stremlenie . Return to Earth now. We have no quarrel with you unless you interfere with us. Return to Earth now.’”

Gonzalez said in Russian, “What are your intentions?” Her voice was calm, but Salah saw the fingers of one hand curl so tightly into a fist that the ambassador’s rings bulged away from her fingers.

On the second wall screen, the sunrise glowed across one-third of the Kindred continent.

Leo said, “Go, go!” He grabbed Dr. Patel from Kandiss, below him on the shuttle-bay deck, and hoisted her into the shuttle, along with a huge plastic case she would not let go of. Lieutenant Ritter was already at the shuttle controls; the engine hummed. Dr. Henry, Ramstetter, and Branch Carter were already strapped in. How many more? Leo ran through the memorized list in his mind—where the fuck was everybody? At least the ones that had shown up wore filter masks; you couldn’t trust civilians to remember mission equipment. This was only a contingency plan, but everybody was supposed to act like they were really going to launch.

Zoe, in full gear, came to the shuttle door. Kandiss’s face screwed into confusion.

Leo said, “No, Berman. Your orders were to stay in sick bay.”

“Those were yesterday’s orders. This is today. I’m on the first team list.”

“ Were on it.”

“You got orders any different?”

Leo didn’t. Kandiss shrugged. Zoe tried for the first step and staggered. Leo said, “Oh, fuck,” grabbed her, and threw her in harder than he had thrown Claire Patel.

Where were the rest of them?

Owen appeared, carrying rifles and other weapons, both arms full and two slings on his back.

On the bridge, silence. The Stremlenie did not answer Gonzalez’s question about their intentions. She had begun to repeat it when another voice spoke. “ Friendship ? I greet you. This is Noah Jenner speaking on Kindred. We are sorry not to communicate with you last night, but our equipment did not permit that.”

Volker looked up briefly, frowning in puzzlement, before returning to his screens. Matthews scowled. Captain Matthews said into his wrister, “Get Dr. Jenner on the bridge. Now.”

The ambassador said, “Mr. Jenner, we are a United States mission seeking to establish diplomatic relations with your planet. Do you speak for World?”

“No, but our… our rotational mother is on the way from… a distant city. Meanwhile, I’m here, much closer. There is a problem, Ambassador. It’s not safe for you to land here just now. The spore cloud—”

A burst of Russian on the other frequency. Captain Lewis said, “Mr. Jenner, wait just a moment please. Thank you.”

Salah translated the repeat of the Stremlenie ’s previous speech: “‘ Friendship , this is Stremlenie . Return to Earth now. We have no quarrel with you unless you interfere with us. Return to Earth now.’”