Sergei Lukyanenko - The Genome

“Yes, Mr. Li Tsyn.” Alex could imagine the company director as vividly as if the visuals were on. A fat old bastard lounging in a luxurious armchair, petting a girlfriend… maybe even that same secretary…

“Mr. Li Tsyn has finished talking with you,” purred the secretary, as though reading his thoughts. “Are there any questions?”

The tone of her voice presupposed that there shouldn’t be any. That was why Alex asked:

“Mister Li is not in the habit of talking with new employees?”

“He is. You’ve talked. Any other questions?”

Under the inquisitive eye of Morrison, Alex forced himself to smile. The co-pilot could hear Alex’s part of the conversation.

“No, thank you. Goodbye.”

The transmission ended.

A direct call from Earth… wow… that cost a pretty penny.

“What are the orders, Captain?” inquired Morrison. It was an ambiguous question—orders for Alex himself, or orders for Morrison? Alex chose the second option.

“Be on the ship in an hour. We might be leaving tonight.”

“Aye-aye, Captain.”

The ship was all in order—this much, at least, was going right. Kim and Janet were in the sick bay; the black lady seemed to have taken the girl under her patronage. Turning on the surveillance system, Alex looked into the sick bay for just a second. Janet and Kim, both leaning over a table, were taking apart an assault ray gun, the Perun , the most powerful hand weapon allowed on small-tonnage ships. Kim was probably better at handling guns, theoretically speaking, but Janet had experience behind her… bitter, hard-won, but valuable experience as an Ebenian soldier.

Inside his navigation module, Generalov was still blissfully immersed in his work. Alex watched him for a few minutes on the screen of the captain’s control panel. Constant practice and self-training were typical for a spesh. And although Puck wasn’t a spesh, that was what he was doing—plotting imaginary routes in virtual space. Just now, Puck was plotting a course from Quicksilver Pit to Edem, Kim’s home world. At first, that track seemed far from perfect to Alex—the navigator had ignored the stationary space-tunnels, which were in constant use, and was taking the ship through “pulsing” tunnels. That would cause them to lose time—pulsing tunnels opened on intervals ranging from three to a hundred and twenty hours. It was also financially deleterious. The use of a pulsing tunnel cost twice as much. And finally, Alex did not see any distance advantage at all. The ship’s route was drifting farther and farther away from Edem.

When Generalov plotted a trek from Zodiac to Lard Crest, Alex finally realized what he was up to. Here they had no need for any tunnels, as the ship would be propelled by its own hyper-generator. And afterwards, covering two parsecs and arriving at the Crest, the ship would find itself at the stationary tunnel Lard Crest-Edem.

The solution was beautiful, and, as far as Alex could tell without being plugged into the machine, perfectly reasonable. They won with respect to time, to money, and to the ship’s resources.

“Cunning natural,” murmured Alex in delight, and switched over to the engineering module. This time he did it openly, initiating a two-way communication channel.

Young Paul Lourier was standing near the gluon reactor. He was swaying slowly, as though meditating in front of the energy stream flowing less than two feet away from his face.

Nothing was safer or deadlier than gluon energy. It was almost cost-free, not counting the cost of the reactor itself. No radioactive waste. No collateral radiation. If the reactor ran stable, of course.

But it was no easy task to achieve working stability with a reactor manipulating the very basis of all matter. At this level, the laws of physics started tripping up. There were no easy answers and ready-made schemes. While the reactor was in minimal-capacity mode, everything was still predictable, and it could always be turned off. But as soon as it moved into full capacity, the process would start “drifting.” And a great many different radiation flows would start appearing out of nowhere. The titanium body of the reactor could turn into gold or graphite, and once Alex even saw a reactor whose walls had turned into a cylinder of solid crystal. Mirror had a tandem Niagara gluon reactor with absolutely no walls, only force fields around the core.

Outwardly, the gluon flow looked like falling water, and Alex appreciated the imaginative approach of the design engineers. It looked as though two transparent, slightly bluish currents were cascading in front of Paul, taking their source from a gold-colored plate inside the ceiling and disappearing into a similar plate in the floor.

“Engineer,” Alex called out.

Paul turned around slowly. His eyes were half-closed, and a smile haunted his lips. He enjoyed familiarizing himself with the driving chains of the reactor—a typical spesh’s reaction to his work. Alex wondered what Paul saw. Probably not flowing water. Paul’s vision was rather different from Alex’s or Kim’s. He could see most of the known radiation bands and visually estimate a flame’s temperature to a fraction of a degree. Now a whole magical fireworks display was playing out before him… neutrons slipping past the force field, bursts of gamma rays, fanlike X-radiation, slow and clumsy alpha particles…

“Are you free?” asked Alex.

“Yes, Captain.”

“Meet me in my quarters.”

“Aye-aye, Captain.”

Lourier shook his head, tossing his heavy hair off his forehead. Glanced once more at the gluon streams and left the camera’s field of vision.

He was apparently an excellent engineer. Young, but familiar with this very reactor. Burning with enthusiasm. What more could a captain hope for?

Alex threw his coat off, rolled up his shirtsleeve, and looked at the Demon. The little devil was wincing. Sad and hopeless, as though a nameless ache was gnawing at him.

“I sense it,” Alex whispered. “I really do feel it. Something’s wrong.”

A spark of curiosity appeared in the Demon’s eyes.

“I don’t know what it is yet…” Alex confided. “But I swear I’ll figure it out!” The Demon probably had little faith left in his promises, but its tiny, cartoonish face did look slightly more relaxed now.

A door signal beeped, and Alex hurriedly rolled his sleeve back down.

“Captain?” Paul hesitated at the threshold.

“Come in.” Alex waved him to a chair, suggesting with his entire manner that the talk would be informal. “Want some coffee? Wine?”

Paul nodded awkwardly. By tradition, as they came off duty, engineers were used to having some dry red wine. But he apparently did not consider himself off duty just yet.

“Coffee, please.”

Alex waited a few more minutes, exchanging small talk with the engineer. And only when the fellow seemed to have relaxed a bit did he bring up the serious business.

“I was really surprised by what you said before, Paul.” The engineer looked at him questioningly. “Tell me how you got onto this ship the first time. Why were you let go?”

The young man was silent for a second, obviously formulating his answer.

“I graduated from the university in Lyon, got my engineering degree. We had been warned that finding a good job while still on Earth would be difficult. And I’d already been thinking about a trip to some outlying parts to look for a position. But then this trip turned up… a one-time thing, one-way. To take a yacht called the Intrepid over to Quicksilver Pit. I checked it out in the handbooks—there’s a huge transport crossroads here, and speshes are in high demand. But the planet’s own academy is rather small. The trip over was uneventful, just three people aboard—a master-pilot, a navigator, and me. Got our pay here… it was all legit. Started looking for the next job, and met you.”