Charles Sheffield - Dark as Day

…while Captain Eric Kondo was studying the paper on the table in front of him.

At last he said, “I asked you to visit me to make sure that I understand your proposal. Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems I have a rather simple choice. Either Paul Marr, who is easily the best first officer I have ever had, fails to return to service on the OSL Achilles when he recovers from his injuries. Or I am obliged to take on as assistant purser a young woman about whom I know little, except that she was involved in an incident on a previous voyage, which could well have led to the loss of every soul onboard.”

Jan winced inwardly. She had written the letter with Paul’s full approval and in as accommodating and respectful a tone as possible, but when Captain Kondo stripped away polite ambiguity it was revealed as a stark binary decision.

“I suppose you could read it that way, Captain.”

“I see no other possible way to read it.”

“Well.” Jan saw no point in delaying bad news. “What do you think?”

Kondo stared away through the port, to the surface of Ganymede with its glitter of frost devils. “I think,” he said carefully. “Or rather, I feel sure” — he held out his hand — “that Paul Marr is a most fortunate young man. Welcome to the OSL Achilles. And be aware, Ms. Jannex, that there is a great difference between life as a passenger and life as crew. You will find me a hard taskmaster.”

Jan could not speak. She had a home at last. True, it was a home that ranged the depths of the solar system, but it was a home. And with that home came a whole family, boasting stern-faced Captain Eric Kondo as its improbable paterfamilias.

She smiled at him…

…as Lena Ligon stared in a despair too deep for words at her reflection in a mirror. What she saw was no longer a Commensal, no longer a beautiful woman, no longer a young woman. She was gazing at her worst horror: her natural self. She shuddered at what she saw…

…while Milly Wu marvelled that two supposedly intelligent men could be so pigheaded and irrational. It was a miracle that she had persuaded them to a three-way holographic conference.

She tried again. “Do you want to understand the aliens, or don’t you?”

“Of course I do.” Jack Beston stared across the table at his brother, green eyes clashing with bright blue at an intensity sufficient to raise sparks. “But if you expect me to work with him…”

“Or me with him.” Philip Beston turned his most charming smile onto Milly. “I already have a working relationship with the Puzzle Network. If you — or Jack, for that matter — can tell me what I possibly have to gain by making it a three-way team…”

“I can.” Milly was becoming tired with spoiled brats. The Beston brothers may not have been born to money, but they had enjoyed enough years with money to develop all the pampered quirks. “If you want to work with me, either one of you, then you’ll have to work with each other. I’ll work with both of you, or I’ll work with neither. The SETI signal is more important than you, me, or all of us.”

Jack flamed at her, as expected. “You ungrateful bastard—”

“No.” Milly pointed at Philip. “Get it right, Jack. He’s the bastard. I’m Milly Wu, one of your younger female staff who can be seduced and laid aside. Remember me?”

“He may need you,” Philip said, before Jack could reply. “But I don’t. I have the Puzzle Network working with me.”

“For how long, Philip Beston? Don’t forget that I’m a member of the Puzzle Network. And I had a senior member panting down my neck long before I moved to Argus Station. Want to bet that I couldn’t make the case for working with the team who actually discovered the Wu-Beston anomaly?”

Philip said, “You wouldn’t!” and Jack said. “That’s my girl!”

“I’m not your girl, Jack Beston. And I’m not your girl, either, Philip Beston, so you can wipe that smarmy grin off your face. You two have to make up your minds. Do we have a SETI program, moving forward with all the best minds in the solar system behind it? Or do we have a big, paranoid mess, where everybody tries to hide an advance from everybody else?”

It was hard to say if they were more angry with Milly than with each other. Milly knew what she was getting herself into: years of squabbling, mediating between the Beston brothers, while — if they were lucky — the message from the stars slowly yielded up its secrets.

The strange thing was how good it all felt. Good to be alive, good to experience life with the passion left in. The trouble with her SETI studies was that they had occupied her so fully that they had squeezed out all the juice.

Now there was juice to spare. Milly glanced from one furious Beston brother to the other. Try as she might, she could not keep the smile off her face…

…and Rustum Battachariya, three hundred Ganymede levels below Milly, folded his hands across his great belly and watched it all. This information web was not as complete as in the Bat Cave on Pandora, but it sufficed. He could contemplate, if not eternity, then immediacy.

Bat relaxed in the steaming bath and was content.