Jeffrey Carver - Eternity's End

Legroeder peered down from the flyer and saw flashing blue lights, just a few blocks from Harriet’s house. The police had stopped the car with Peter’s men. Legroeder flopped back in the passenger seat, breathing heavily.

Peter flew them directly to the southeastern edge of the spaceport, farthest from the main building. Piling out onto the tarmac, they got their first look at the ship they’d be traveling in. It was a small corporate-size craft, pretty old from the look of it. Peter had hired it from a company on Faber Eridani’s largest moon—a company whose officers were looking for ways to generate some revenue from their expensive equipment. They probably weren’t paying too much attention to what was going on at the Elmira spaceport, or with the spacing authorities or the local police. Legroeder wondered if Peter had mentioned that their passengers-to-be had an unfortunate tendency to bring trouble along with them.

A drizzling rain obscured the field. It was comforting to be surrounded by banks of mist in the midnight darkness, knowing that the police would be looking here soon. They hurried to the spacecraft and were greeted by the pilot, Conex, a dark-skinned Halcyon whose face, while humanoid, was extremely narrow, with an almost reptilian snout. Conex and Peter exchanged words and dataslips, before the Clendornan turned and said, “I’ll be off, then. I’ll learn what I can here. You be careful, yes?”

The Clendornan’s eyes sparkled with light as Harriet thanked him. Then he glanced across the field, where the flashes of police flyers were piercing the night. “You’d better get going,” he murmured. He hurried to his flyer and disappeared into the mist.

Conex escorted them through the entry portal and up to the passenger compartment. Once their bags were stowed, and everyone secured in their seats, Conex rejoined his copilot in the cockpit.

Five minutes later—an eternity—a tow descended and coupled to the ship. Flanked by the soft glow of the tow’s Circadie space inductors, they accelerated up through the rain clouds and out into the star-flecked blackness of space.

The trip out to the asteroid belt took three days from the time the tow released them on a fast outbound track. The sleeping compartments were scarcely larger than closets, so Legroeder, Harriet, and Morgan spent most of their time together in the cramped passenger compartment. Conex and his copilot Zan, also a Halcyon, kept to themselves most of the time, joining their passengers only at mealtime.

As a passenger on a spacecraft, Legroeder felt like a third leg. He kept wanting to go forward and help pilot the ship, never mind that they were simply traveling through normal-space and there was no rigging involved. Instead, he and the others pored over the data from McGinnis, absorbing details about the Impris investigation, and pondering the questions that McGinnis had never had a chance to answer. From time to time, they would go to the lounge’s observation port and peer intently back at Faber Eridani, as if they might glimpse pursuit by the police, or by their unknown enemy.

After a time Legroeder, overwhelmed by the minutiae of the hundred-year-old investigation, simply sat and gazed out the port into the depths of space, his thoughts wandering among the stars. He found himself longing wistfully for a set of pearlgazers he had once owned, before they were stolen by his pirates captors: gems with psychogenerative powers that he had often used as a focus for meditation. Now, missing them, he began to lose himself in his memories… glimpses of lost friends, lost hopes and dreams…

“Penny for your thoughts, Legroeder.”

He blinked and turned his head.

Morgan Mahoney had settled into the seat beside him. “You haven’t moved a muscle in the last hour. I was afraid we were losing you.” She peered at him for a moment, frowning. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“No—no, it’s fine.” It wasn’t fine at all. But he would talk; he could do that.

“You’re worried about your friend?”

He shrugged. “What am I not worried about?”

“I know what you mean. I’ve been wondering whether we’ll get there before the authorities turn us around and haul us all in. I have to admit, I’ve never been on the run like this before. It scares me.”

Legroeder rocked back and squinted up at the ceiling of the little lounge. It glittered. Now, who the hell would put glitter on their ceiling? “Yah,” he murmured, thinking, When was I last not on the run?

A chime sounded, and the younger Mahoney got up to retrieve a fresh pot of tea from the galley. Returning with cups, she said to Legroeder, “I hope you don’t mind my asking, but you know, I haven’t heard much of anything about your life before.”

“Before—?”

“The pirates. Where did you come from, how did you start rigging… what was your family like?”

Legroeder felt a sudden roaring in his ears. He closed his eyes, trying to shut it out. Before the pirates …

“I’m sorry—did I—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”

“No… no…” he whispered. Life before the pirates… eons ago. Another world. Another universe. At this moment, he couldn’t begin to recapture it. Any of it. He felt as if he’d had no life before the pirates. Just the effort of reaching back into the fog made him dizzy. Claire Marie, where he was a child; then New Tarkus a little later. He had never really had a home planet as an adult, though for a while, Chaening’s World came as close as any. Finally he managed, “Why would you want to hear about that?”

“Well… I guess to get to know you better,” Morgan said, looking a little puzzled. She handed him a cup of tea. “Isn’t that the usual reason?

Legroeder accepted the cup. “I guess so. But I don’t recall your telling me anything about you . You know, before you met me.”

“Oh.” Morgan cleared her throat as she sat back down. “Well…”

“What’s wrong? Did I say something wrong?”

Across the tiny lounge, Harriet looked faintly amused, as Morgan foundered for words. “Well, I don’t know. There’s not that much to say.”

“Why? Because your life is too dull, or too interesting?”

Morgan blushed.

“Oh, just go ahead and tell him,” Harriet said.

“About what?” Morgan snapped. “The failed marriage? Or the three different attempts at a career?”

“Listen,” Legroeder said. “I didn’t mean to start anything—”

“It’s perfectly all right, Legroeder,” said Harriet. “Morgan is just being hard on herself. She’s had career troubles for perfectly good reasons, and I haven’t noticed her giving up. As for the marriage—well, it’s not as if she had a great role model.” As Morgan glared protectively at her mother, Harriet shrugged. “Her father divorced me when she was seven. And for good cause. I was too preoccupied with my career—and, I am ashamed to admit, somewhat neglectful of my two children.”

“Are we going to bring out all the dirty laundry now?”

“I’m sorry, dear. I don’t mean to embarrass you. But you did open the subject.”

“I did not. I just asked—”

“Look,” Legroeder interrupted. “Would it help if we cut out all this feel-good history crap, and I just told you what it was like to be with pirates? That ought to bring everyone down to earth.”

Harriet, startled, opened her mouth to answer. She was interrupted by a buzz from the intercom and Conex’s voice: “ Mrs. Mahoney, we’ve received a message from Mr. El’ken, addressed to you. Would you like to come forward to view it?”

“Thank you, yes!” Harriet set her cup of tea on the sideboard. She rose and disappeared through the door to the bridge.