Charles Gannon - Raising Caine

Yiithrii’ah’aash’s purr was long and continued beneath the first half of his reply. “Your perception is excellent, Doctor. They are members of a specialized subtaxon, to be exact.” He turned to one of them.

Which bobbed its head once, and spoke through a translator hanging beneath its arm. “I am a”—at which point the translator fumbled and spat random syllables. “We were induced to serve in environments where gravity is low or nonexistent. It was deemed prudent to encourage a return of certain features from our arboreal origins”—he/she/it wriggled the deck-splayed toe-fingers meaningfully—“to provide us with better grasping and maneuvering capabilities in zero-gee environments. I am incompletely informed, but I understand that in your own species, some of the same attenuations of skeleton and musculature are observed after several generations of low-gravity breeding.”

Gaspard, who had moved forward more slowly than Hwang, nodded. “Yes, this is so. However, we discourage this. It problematizes our social coherence.”

“The inducement of a useful new subform tends the group toward disharmony?” The low-gee Slaasriithi’s neck seemed to quiver faintly, like a tuning fork losing the last vibrations of a tone. “I do not understand.”

Yiithrii’ah’aash intervened, several finger-tendrils uncoiling toward Gaspard. “You will appreciate that for those of us not well acquainted with humanity, your disapproval regarding a physical alteration in your species sounds contradictory. For us, social harmony is not physically dependent upon, nor a product of, homogeneity of form. To the contrary, our harmony arises from the diverse capabilities enabled by carefully selected variations in our forms. As you shall see more completely tomorrow. Now, allow me to enable access to your supplies.”

Yiithrii’ah’aash raised his “hand,” which, Caine saw, was now sleeved in something that looked like a form-fitting glove moored by nonornamental rings and covered irregularly by studs. The ambassador’s prehensile fingers went through a set of impossible contortions, apparently bringing several of the rings and studs into rapid contact with each other. The heavy doors into the main cargo compartment clunked heavily: unlocked.

Bannor, eyes still on Yiithrii’ah’aash’s glove and rings, raised an eyebrow. “That is one strange control device.”

“Strange but effective,” Hwang murmured. “I bet they can get more combinations drummed out faster than we can with our touch screens. And it’s obviously versatile enough to interface with our own systems.” He followed Yiithrii’ah’aash into the cargo mod. Caine trailed after.

It was, on first impression, like entering the belly of an industrial age Leviathan. They stood at the threshold of a cavernous hexagonal tunnel, fifty meters long and twenty meters high. Two elevated gantries ran its length, the first one perched eight meters over the deck, the second at sixteen. Spools of zero-gee guide wires and their mooring points dotted the metal gridwork of ladders, decks, and stalls. And stacked upon or jammed against every available surface except the ground-level’s central walkway were universal lading containers of several different shapes.

Nasr Eid smiled up into the cubist cave. “A toy box for a giant infant.”

“Yeah, just don’t let any of those blocks fall on ya,” Tina Melah chuckled as she moved past with easy familiarity. “Buckley’s not the only one who’s spent some time in these death-traps.” She saw Nasr’s fearful look. “Now, now, no reason to get your jammies in a twist, Nasr. We’ve got steady rotation to keep everything where it’s already locked in place. But, if you go to zero gee, take a few hits, and have a few restraint bars break and lashings tear — well, then you’ve got some serious anvil-dodging fun on your hands!” She strode ahead into the dim bowels of the mod. Most of the others followed as motion-activated lights popped on, marking Tina’s progress down the length of the module. Caine strolled after them.

Coming around a massive cargo pod, he discovered Joe Buckley seated on a small container, his hands covering his face. Keith Macmillan was standing nearby, saw Caine approach, shrugged.

“Damn, it all looked fine at first,” Joe lamented, “but — oh, Jesus H. Christ!” Buckley groaned as if he’d been bayoneted in the gut.

“What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong? Christ, just look at it!”

As Tygg and Oleg Danysh walked up, Caine looked around for the wrongness that so afflicted Joe. “Okay. And…what am I supposed to be seeing?”

Tygg frowned, glanced at the hard-copy lading list attached to the cargo pod, checked it against the chip-coded inventory on his palmcomp. “Oh, they’ve bollixed all this right enough. Everything they sent with us is smart-tagged, but they split up most of the individual lots between the different containers.”

Danysh grimaced. “Please, in words we all understand.”

Buckley, sitting with his head in his hands, shouted. “Everything is all mixed up. Food packed in with electronics. Medical supplies layered into survival gear. And the damned index is chock full of errors, too. It’s like some workgang and their robots just pushed every container into the first empty space they could find, going as fast as they could and the hell with anything else.”

Caine nodded. “Joe, this mission was put together in less than twenty-four hours. They pulled equipment and team members from all around the fleet. That may have something to do with it.”

“Probably has everything to do with it,” Buckley muttered. He looked up. “Captain, this is going to take days to untangle. Maybe weeks.”

“I’ll see what I can do about getting you semi-regular access, Joe.”

“But, Captain—”

“Joe, we’re here to open diplomatic relations with the Slaasriithi. Who might be the only species in the Accord willing to be our allies. And they want us all down planetside tomorrow. I don’t know what they might want after that. But here’s what I do know: those jobs come before this job.” Caine waved a hand at the mélange of mismatched bulk containers around them. “And here’s the first part of this job: you are to locate and data-tag all the defense and emergency stores.”

“Well, I can get locator numbers out of the database pretty quickly. But I can’t verify that—”

“We’ll work with whatever data you give us and I’ll provide the backs to move the gear. Get that list compiled and give it to Mr. Rulaine.”

“Yes, sir. When do you need it done?”

Caine stared at Buckley. “Five minutes ago. Any more questions?”

Buckley blinked, shook his head. “No, sir.” He turned and jogged off into the deeper recesses of the cargo mod.

Bannor had just arrived alongside Caine. “Did anyone ever mention that you have a really icy stare, sometimes?”

“Not that I can remember.”

“Well, then I’m the first. No wonder they made you an officer. What next?”

“Next we gather all the security personnel and start moving our gear to the corvette and the lander.”

Danysh started. “Are you expecting trouble, Captain?”

“No, Dr. Danysh, but if it arises, I want to have our defense and emergency gear where we need it and ready to go. It won’t do us much good otherwise.”

“Very well, I shall not intrude upon your preparations.”

Or volunteer to help , Caine thought as the physicist made himself scarce. Riordan took a few steps away from Buckley toward the comparative privacy of a corner. He glanced at Macmillan, who strolled over.

“Yes, Captain?”

“I notice from your dossier that you and I have an acquaintance in common.”