Jack Campbell - Invincible

The difference was that those ships all had the means to leave jump space when they reached their destination. Anyone who lost contact with a ship did not.

As a result of that, no work was done by humans on the outside of ships in jump space. In emergencies, robots might be employed, but with the expectation that those robots would very likely be lost forever.

Was that what the mysterious lights of jump space were? Frantic distress flares from someone or something eternally caught in nothing? Geary almost shivered at the thought. The common belief that those lights had some mystical significance was much more comforting and easier to live with.

Also comforting was the knowledge that no external threat could reach them in jump space. For now, he could truly focus on other issues for a while.

“I’m going to be down in my stateroom,” he told Desjani. “Do we have any of those VIP wraps left?”

“Not that I’ve discovered,” she replied.

“Maybe I’ll eat a meal with the crew and get a feel for morale.”

“Morale on my ship is fine, Admiral,” Desjani said. “I haven’t had to have anyone flogged to improve their morale for days now.”

“That’s good to hear, Captain.”

The walk to a dining compartment did feel almost relaxing, the crew obviously feeling as relieved as Geary to be going away from the bear-cows and toward home. He talked with some of the crew as he ate, asking about their home worlds. Most were from Kosatka, and some had been there during the brief but memorable few days he and Tanya had spent on that planet for what had passed as a honeymoon. “I didn’t buy one drink during those days,” one sailor told Geary. “I’d walk into a bar in uniform, and they’d see Dauntless on my ship badge, and that was all there was to it.”

“I got two marriage proposals,” another crew member said. “I told both of them I was okay with it but that my husband probably wouldn’t go along.”

As the laughter from that died down, the questions turned to other matters. Usually with an admiral within reach, sailors would ask about living conditions and food and time off and working conditions, but this time the questions were about bigger issues. The thousands of Marines who had been aboard the bear-cow superbattleship had spread their stories far and wide, so everyone knew a lot about the creatures. But that still left some serious concerns. “Are we going back there, Admiral, to where the Kicks live?”

Geary shook his head firmly. “No.” He could see the crew members around him relaxing immediately at his unambiguous reply. “Any human ship going there for the foreseeable future would have to be fully automated. I’m not going to risk another human life dealing with the bear-cows.”

“Why are we bringing that huge ship with us, sir?” another sailor asked. “It’s slowing us down, isn’t it?”

“A bit,” Geary admitted. “But it’s incredibly valuable. It’s a treasure trove of bear-cow technology. Maybe when we have time to analyze everything back in Alliance space, they won’t find anything amazing on it, just different ways of doing what we can already do. But maybe they’ll find things we never knew we could do.”

A veteran systems technician nodded. “Something really revolutionary that we never thought of. How do you measure how much that could be worth?”

“Exactly. And, if nothing there is beyond what we can already do, that at least tells us the limits of what the bear-cows can do.”

That earned him more nods, then one sailor proffered her data unit where a picture was displayed. “Admiral, is this really what the B—the things that helped us look like?”

It was a good representation of a spider-wolf, probably taken from one of the messages the spider-wolves had sent to the fleet as a whole when it had arrived at Honor. But although the sailor had shown the sense not to call them Bubs to Geary’s face, the term obviously was still in use. “Yes. That’s what they look like. Unattractive as sin, aren’t they?” Geary asked, trying to disarm the inevitable reactions. “That’s on the outside. On the inside, they seem to have a lot more in common with us than the bear-cows or the enigmas.”

“Some of them tried to help a pod off of Balestra ,” another crewman noted.

“That makes them better than Syndics, too,” someone else remarked.

The laughter this time was a bit nervous. “The bottom line,” Geary said as convincingly as he could, “is that they did fight alongside us, and they did attempt to aid us in other ways. They’re letting us use their hypernet to get home a lot faster than we could otherwise. You judge someone by how they act, not by how they look.”

“Tell that to my chief at the next uniform inspection, Admiral!”

“Yeah, Admiral, can I quote you on that?”

Geary laughed, standing up and waving away the eager, joking requests. “I’m only an admiral. I can lead chiefs, but I can’t push them around. Besides, according to Captain Desjani, you’re the best sailors in the fleet. Why would I need to ask for special treatment for you?”

He left the dining compartment feeling better, but the sailors’ questions had brought to life some of his own concerns. Once Geary reached his stateroom, he put in a call to another officer aboard Dauntless , asking him to drop by as soon as possible.

“Admiral.” General Charban, at least, was enjoying some rest. With the ships isolated in jump space, he was no longer being called upon to try to communicate with the spider-wolves on a constant basis. “You wanted to see me?” he asked as he entered Geary’s stateroom.

“Yes.” Geary waved Charban to a seat. “I was afraid you’d already passed out for a while.”

“After all those days I had to stay awake to deal with negotiations, my metabolism will take a few more hours to slow down again to the point where I can sleep,” Charban said as he sat. “I could slam it down with some different meds, but I prefer to let my body handle getting back to normal a little more naturally.”

“A wise move,” Geary said. “I wanted a candid appraisal from you, without any pressure from anyone else being present. You’ve had as much contact with the spider-wolves as anyone has so far.”

“Emissary Rione is actually the only one to have had ‘contact,’” Charban pointed out. “Though that distinction didn’t seem to mean much to the fleet medical personnel who inflicted such a wide array of tests and examinations on both of us. In preparation for that meeting with the spider-wolves, I had read a number of accounts of supposed encounters with alien species in the far past. Those old stories often claimed the aliens used probes and other uncomfortable forms of physical inspection. In fact, the spider-wolves were very courteous. It was our own doctors who probed away with considerable enthusiasm.”

“I’m sorry about that.” Geary sat down opposite Charban. “General, I want to know any impressions you have of the spider-wolves that have not appeared in formal reporting.”

“Impressions, Admiral? As to what? I can speak for hours about different matters, but it would help if I knew exactly what you’re interested in.”

“Can we trust them?” Geary saw Charban taken aback by the question. “Yes, they fought alongside us against the bear-cows. But what about now? Jump space is not a big trust issue. We know where we’re going. I don’t have a gut feeling that we need fear any kind of trap or ambush from the spider-wolves there. But we’ll be entering their hypernet, dependent on them as to where we come out.”

“I see.” Charban gave Geary a wry look. “Admiral, have you ever met the sorts of people who strike you as dangerous because they’re unpredictable? You know the kind. It’s not just that they’re capable of doing things but that they might strike out at any time at anyone. Or they might do something totally unexpected.”