Jeffrey Carver - Eternity's End

Legroeder trembled with anger. He avoided looking at the inquest panelists. To have escaped from the raiders and gotten Maris to a hospital here, only to be put on trial for collaborating with pirates in his own capture? It was impossible! Who would have believed it?

“Counsel, may we take that as a yes?” asked the voice of the inquest chair.

Kalm-Lieu glanced uneasily at Legroeder. “Yes, Ma’am.”

“In that case, Rigger Legroeder, we will put the question to you again. Please describe your actions, seven years ago, leading up to the taking of Ciudad de los Angeles by the Golen Space pirates.”

Legroeder felt as if he were standing outside of his own skin, watching himself—a small, olive-skinned man with gloomy eyes, trying to comprehend the trap he was caught in. He sighed and rubbed his temples, forcing himself to suppress that image.

“Let me understand,” he said slowly. “I’ve just escaped from forced servitude with interstellar pirates, and I’ve come to you for sanctuary and offered to tell you everything I know about the pirates’ operations. But all you care about is what happened when my ship was attacked seven years ago—and whether you can pin something on me for it?”

“Not at all, Rigger Legroeder. But we must have the facts before us.”

“Including facts about the ghost ship? About Impris? ”

The voice of the court inclined her virtual head. “You may describe your capture in whatever way you feel is appropriate. Now, if you please…”

Legroeder closed his eyes, summoning the events of seven years before. The beginning of the nightmare…

The Ciudad de los Angeles was a passenger/cargo liner, a good ship carrying a modest but respectable manifest of fifty-two passengers and twenty-four crewmembers, including the rigging complement of seven. Legroeder was among the more seasoned of the riggers, three of whom were stationed in the net at any given time. Legroeder’s specialty was the stern-rigger station, the anchor; he was to be the maintainer of good grounding and common sense, especially if the lead and keel riggers became carried away with the imagery of the Flux. He was known as a rigger with a dark outlook, but solid reliability.

Ciudad de los Angeles was en route to Varinorum Prime—a little close to the edge of Golen Space, but on a route considered fairly safe from pirate attack. It was Legroeder who first sighted the other ship in the Flux, flickering into view off to the portside of the L.A . It appeared to be on a course parallel to theirs. The sighting of any other ship in the Flux was such a rare event that the image was branded on his memory: the ship long and pale and silver, like a whale gliding slowly through the mists of the Flux. He didn’t just see it, but heard it: the soft hooting of a distress signal so thin and distant as to be nearly inaudible.

Take a look off to the left, and tell me if you see what I see, he said, alerting his rigger-mates to the sighting. He strained to get a better reading on the distress signal. He couldn’t quite make it out, or decipher where the ship was going; it seemed to be passing through a layer of the Flux that was separated from the L.A . by a slight phase shift, though he couldn’t quite discern a boundary layer.

I see it, too , said Jakus Bark from the keel-rigger position. Is that a distress signal? We’d better call the captain. Bridge—Captain Hyutu—?

When Captain Hyutu checked in, he reported that he could just make it out in the bridge monitors. By now, the distress beacon had become more audible. The codes didn’t match anything in the L.A .’s computer, but soon they could hear voices calling across the gulf: “This is Impris… Impris calling… please respond… we need assistance… this is Impris , out of Faber Eridani…”

Legroeder and the rest of the crew were stunned.

Impris .

The legendary Flying Dutchman, the ghost ship of the stars? Impossible! Officially, Impris was nothing more than a legend—a ship that vanished into the Flux during a routine voyage, well over a hundred years ago. Impris was hardly the first, nor the last, ship to vanish during a voyage, especially in time of war. What made her the stuff of legend was the recurring rumor of ghostly sightings—not just by one ship or two, but by generations of riggers. None of the sightings was clear enough to constitute proof of her continued existence, but the number of alleged sightings was enough to keep the legend alive.

It was as though Impris had faded into the Flux, never to reemerge into normal-space; and yet neither had she perished. So the tale in star riggers’ bars grew: that she was like the Flying Dutchman of old, the legendary haunted seagoing ship whose captain and crew were doomed to sail through eternity, lost and immortal and without hope.

Myth, said the Spacing Authority’s archives.

Real, said the riggers in the bars.

In the Flux it could be hard to tell the difference.

Not this time, though. Legroeder saw the ship moving through the mists of the Flux, and his crewmates saw it, too. Captain Hyutu of the L.A . was no rigger, but he was an experienced captain who could read the signs in the monitors as well as any. When he heard the distress call, he gave the order to the riggers: Make slow headway toward that ship. See if you can bring us alongside . An announcement echoed throughout the L.A . They were preparing to render assistance to a vessel in distress.

The L.A . closed the gap between the ships.

And that was when the Flux began to light up, the misty atmospheres around the L.A . suddenly flashing like a psychedelic light show. What the hell—? muttered Legroeder.

And then the sounds… DROOM! DROOM! DROOM! … like booming kettle drums, drowning out the distress call. Legroeder’s heart pounded as Impris turned toward the L.A ., and for a few seconds he thought the sounds were coming from Impris herself.

Are they turning to dock? called Jakus, from the keel.

They’re on a collision course! cried the lead rigger. Hard to starboard! Captain, sound collision!

Legroeder’s stomach was in knots as he struggled, in a Flux that had suddenly become turbulent and slippery, to bring the stern around. Captain Hyutu intoned, Steady as she goes! Steady, now! The riggers obeyed, Legroeder holding his breath. And then Legroeder saw what Hyutu must have seen in the monitors: the other ship was shimmering and becoming insubstantial. As she closed with the L.A ., turning, the front of her net cut across the portside bow of the L.A .’s.

And for just an instant, Legroeder felt the presence of the rigger crew of the other ship, heard their cries of anguish and despair, felt their awareness of him … and then Impris and her crew became altogether transparent, and suddenly were gone.

Gone.

A heartbeat later, another ship emerged from the mist in its place: a spiky and misshapen ship with a grotesque, leering face on its bow and weaponry bristling down its side. What—? Legroeder breathed, along with the others in the net, and then someone cried, Golen Space pirates! The booming crescendoed: DOOOOM!… DOOOM-M-M!… DOOOM-M-M! The Flux came ablaze with light, and it was all coming from the marauder ship. It had been hiding behind Impris , using the doomed ship as a shield.

Away! Legroeder cried, and they tried to turn the L.A . away to flee, but it was already too late. The pirate riggers had spun threads of deception and fear, and they seemed to have a command over the stuff of the Flux that the L.A .’s crew did not. Within minutes, the two ships were bound together in coiling, distorted currents of the Flux, and then the marauder ship was pulling them up through the layers of the Flux into the emptiness between the stars. As they emerged into normal-space, light-years from the nearest help, the emerald and crimson haze of the great Barrier Nebula obscured even the sight of the distant stars that had been the L.A .’s destination.