Eugene Lambert - The Long Forever

‘Neither do you,’ Sky snarls back.

We clear off through the hatch and slam it behind us. Through its porthole I watch the guy struggle up to wrench at the cage door. It holds. He slumps back down.

‘If Murdo does get this ship’s drive going again, they’ll get a taste of their own medicine,’ I say.

Sky grins. ‘Hah. I hadn’t thought of that.’

I’d raced through the freighter’s crew compartment when we were hunting for crewmen. It looks much smaller now, with all the kids jammed inside. The lucky ones are curled up on two clusters of seats over by the walls. Others sprawl on the deck, or perch on anything they can find. Some stare around, their eyes big and curious. Most only have eyes for an alcove to the right. Cam, Anuk and skinny guy are pulling packets of crunchy-sounding stuff out of lockers that seem frosted up inside. Food, I reckon, from the eager looks on their faces. Light shines from a small clear hatch with something turning slowly inside it, and my mouth starts watering at the smell of warming food.

But I can’t help seeing how filthy and tired it is in here. Which is weird. All my life I’d heard off-world stuff is slick and shiny compared to Wrath’s rusty old crap.

Sky starts picking her way through the kids, heading for the hatch that leads forward to the flight deck.

‘What about the food?’ I say.

‘It can wait,’ she says.

My stomach growls, but what can I do but follow?

We’re almost at the hatch when she suddenly staggers like a drunk. I lunge and hold her up.

‘You need rest and food. Murdo can wait.’

‘Don’t be a gom. Help me.’

‘Okay, okay.’ I duck under Sky’s left arm so it’s over my shoulder, slip my arm round her waist and take her weight. She was never heavy, but now she’s scary light.

We carry on through the hatch, along a companionway and up a few steps on to the flight deck. As we lurch inside, another hatch hisses closed behind us. It’s brightly lit in here, and I have to squint. Two complicated-looking pilot chairs face forward, away from us. Murdo’s to our right, sitting in front of flickering lights and several powered-down screens. When he sees us he rotates his seat and struggles up.

Sky pulls free, limps over and collapses on to it.

‘What d’you think?’ Murdo says, grinning his fool head off, eyes shining as he gestures around.

We both stare at him.

‘You do know this is a spaceship,’ I say.

‘Not just some crappy old windjammer,’ Sky says.

‘Watch and learn, kids! It’s been a while all right, but it’s coming back fast.’ Murdo slides into the left-hand pilot seat and fiddles with stuff. The panels in front of him all light up together. He laughs triumphantly.

‘You can switch a screen on,’ Sky says. ‘Big deal.’

‘Check this out then!’ He taps at one screen confidently.

I’m in the middle of throwing myself into the seat beside him, but somehow I miss it.

And now I’m . . . floating in mid-air.

‘Murdo!’ I howl, flailing to grab on to something.

‘Sorry,’ he says, pawing frantically at his panel. ‘Switched off the synthetic gravity by mistake.’

I crash back down.

From somewhere behind me, Sky yells curses.

‘Been a while,’ Murdo says again, cool as you like. ‘Now then.’

The lights inside the flight deck dim to darkness. And suddenly I’m gazing out through forward canopy panels at a blizzard of stars. More than I’ve ever seen before, even on the clearest Wrath night. All of them scattered like sparks across a blackness so deep it sucks at my eyes. It’s a good job the seat’s there to catch me. I fall into it, amazed.

‘Beautiful, huh?’ he says quietly.

I have to force myself to breathe. ‘That’s . . . wow.’

We sit and stare, lapping up the view. When Murdo turns the lights back up to bright, I’m gutted.

‘We’ll have more time for stargazing later,’ he says. ‘Want to see where we were headed?’

‘What d’you mean, were ?’ Sky says.

But Murdo’s already playing with yet another panel. A column of green light shoots up in the space between the pilot chairs. It spreads out quickly to form a dimly glowing cube of green mist. Scattered throughout are thousands of white dots. A curved blue line arches between two of them. At its nearest end, a large red dot pulses. There’s a few chunks of text too, but the whole display flickers and shimmers so much that I can’t make them out.

He fiddles with the panel, can’t fix it, and curses.

‘Okay, so this is the star map for the Vulpes sector. Red dot’s where we are. Blue line’s our heading, so that’s Wrath’s system being left behind us and –’

Murdo reaches for the far end of the line in the mist, closes and opens his hand. The display zooms in to the line ending in a small cube, showing two suns inside it and some wriggling text. He leans closer and peers at it.

‘I reckon that says Enshi Four.’

Sky levers herself up from her seat and limps closer to lean on the back of mine. ‘What’s Enshi Four?’

‘A crappy little dust-bowl world, fourth out from a binary sun. They mine stuff there, but I forget what exactly. Only one settlement to speak of, up near its north pole.’

‘Why would we be going there ?’ I ask.

‘My guess is to sell the darkblende to the mining outfit based there. D’you remember Haggletown? Enshi’s polar settlement is like that, someplace you come to trade your goods for whatever you can get. Some is legit, but mostly it’s bootleg. Dark market. You can sell your contraband there and buy anything, with no questions asked.’ He smiles around at us. ‘It’s my kind of place.’

‘Do they deal in slaves?’ Sky croaks.

‘Absolutely. Big illegal market in slaves out here in frontier space, beyond the reach of the Core worlds. Mining worlds have loads of dirty and dangerous jobs no sane person would do. Slaves can’t argue and don’t need paying. Bigger profits that way. Nubloods like your sister would fetch a premium. Faster, stronger, quicker to heal. Already skilled miners. Yeah, they’d fetch big creds.’

Sky flinches visibly. ‘You sound like you approve.’

I jump in before this gets nasty. ‘How the hell do you know all this stuff, Murdo?’

Murdo stretches. ‘This is where I come from.’

We both stare at him.

‘Okay, real quick,’ he says. ‘When you guys were still sucking your thumbs, I was marooned on Wrath.’

‘Ma-whatted?’ Sky says, all incredulous.

He sighs. ‘Can’t this wait? I’ve got loads to do.’

‘No!’ Sky and me shout together.

‘Okay, okay. No need to make my ears bleed. Back then, I was second pilot on a transport like this. It was called the Never Again too, just like my old windjammer. Sometimes we carried freight, mostly we smuggled stuff. Anyway, me and the skipper had a bust-up. Bastard dumped me on Wrath, with nothing but the clothes I was standing up in.’

‘Why didn’t he just waste you?’ Sky asks, suspiciously.

‘The woman we fought over wouldn’t let him.’

‘Wasn’t Wrath off-limits?’ I ask.

‘That’s why he dumped me there. No visiting starships, so no way off again. If he couldn’t kill me, he wanted to be sure I was stuck there for the rest of my days. And before you ask, we knew nothing about the Slayers’ darkblende mining operation, or that they were shipping it off-world.’

‘Why didn’t you tell us this before?’ I say.

‘It’s none of your business. I’m only telling you now so you’ll stop whining about who’s going to fly this crate.’

‘So you can fly it?’

‘How many times do I have to tell you? Yes! Anyway, between the stars, this crate flies itself. It’s got an AI brain like your old robot pet, Squint, only way bigger and brighter. All I do is program our go-to, and when I fire up the drive it does the rest. Orbital merges, ascents and descents, in-space dockings, it can do all that too. Or give me assist if I fly it manually. But for surface take-offs and landings, that’s when you’ll need me hands-on. Especially the kind of hang-outs we’ll be dropping in on, off the beaten track.’