Part 29 (2/2)
”It was the worst of bad luck, but you are safe now,” Tee said, gently, rising to his feet and extending a hand to her. ”Come, let's reunite you with the rest of the Destiny's Destiny's crew.” crew.”
”Well, she's as good as sc.r.a.p. Without a program dump from another Destiny Lines mainframe, we can't get the hulk to tell us all the places where it hurts, let alone fix them,” Engineer Perkin explained, ruefully.
”Do rights of salvage apply?” One of the younger Fleet officers spoke up, then looked ashamed of himself as everyone turned to look at him. ”Sorry. Don't mean to sound greedy.”
”h.e.l.l, Destiny Lines had already abandoned us for dead,” First Mate Sharu said, waving the gaffe away. ”Take whatever you want, but please leave us our personal belongings. We've also laid claim to the insured valuables left behind by some of our pa.s.sengers.”
”I ... I was thinking of fresh foodstuffs,” the lieutenant stammered. ”That's all.”
”Oh,” Sharu grinned. ”The hydroponic section is alive and well. Lieutenant. There's enough growing there to feed thousands. The grapefruits are just ripe. So are the ompoyas, cacceri leaf, groatberries, marsh peas, yellow grapes, artichokes, five kinds of tomatoes, about a hundred lands of herbs, and more things ripening every day. We ate well in exile. Help yourselves.”
The younger officers at the table cheered and one threw his hat in the air. The older officers just smiled.
”We'll take advantage of your kindly offer. First Mate,” the Fleet captain said, smiling on her genially. ”Like any vessel whose primary aim is never to carry unnecessary loads, our hydro section is limited to what is considered vital for healthy organisms, and no more.”
”Captain Aelock, we owe you much more than a puny load of groceries. I'm sure when Captain Wynline comes back from the Destiny's hulk with your men, he'll tell you the same. He may even help you strip equipment out personally. To say he's bitter about our abandonment is a pitiful understatement. Ah, Lunzie! Feeling better?” Sharu smiled as Lunzie and Tee entered, and gestured to the medic to sit by her.
”I'm fine, thanks.”
”It seems we owe our rescue to the persuasiveness of Ensign Janos, is that correct?”
”In part,” Tee said, modestly. ”It is actually Commander Coromell that we all must thank.”
”I'm grateful to everyone. I've set aside some of the salvage goods for both of you. Lunzie, do you fancy Lady Cholder's jewels? It's a poor bonus for losing ten years, but they're yours. I would say they're worth something between half a million and a million credits.”
”Thank you, Sharu, that's more than generous. Am I the last awake?” Lunzie asked.
”No. The Commander's father and his father's aide were the last,” Aelock answered. ”I've asked them to join us here when they've finished in the Communications Center.”
”I should have been consulted,” Lunzie said, with some asperity. ”The Admiral has a heart condition.”
”We had that information from his son,” Aelock said apologetically. ”Besides, his health records are in the Fleet computer banks.”
”Ah, there you are. Doctor,” the senior Coromell said in a booming voice, striding into the room, followed by his aide. ”If there is ever anything that I or my descendants can do for you, consider it a sacred trust. This young lady saved my life. Captain. I just told my son so.” Lunzie blushed. The Admiral smiled on her and continued. ”He's very grateful that I'm alive, but no more so than I. He spent a lot of air time ticking off his old man for heroics, and then said he'd probably have done the same thing himself. I'm to meet him on Tau Ceti. I'll take responsibility if anyone asks why the transmission on a secure channel was so lengthy.”
”I have discretion in this matter. Admiral, but thank you,” Aelock said graciously. ”Now, what is to be done with all of you? Since Destiny Lines seems to have washed its hands of you. At least temporarily, that is. I shall be preferring charges in FSP court against them for reckless abandonment of a s.p.a.ce vessel.”
”With your permission,” Sharu asked, ”may I communicate with the head office? Since I have managed to live in spite of their efforts, I may be able to shame them into paying for our retrieval and continuing travel to our destination from wherever you may drop us off.”
Captain Aelock nodded. ”Of course.”
”Oh, and Doctor, there was a transmission for you on the FTL link, too,” the Admiral told her when the meeting broke up. ”You might want to take it in private.” It was the softest voice she'd ever heard him use.
”Thank you. Admiral.” Lunzie was puzzled by his uncommon solicitousness. He smiled and marched off down the corridor with Captain Aelock, with Don and Aelock's officers trailing behind.
”Come,” Tee said. ”It is easy to find. You should begin to learn the layout of the s.h.i.+p.” They stood outside the meeting room in a corridor about two and a half meters wide. ”This is the main thoroughfare of the s.h.i.+p. It runs from the bridge straight back to the access to engineering. It was considered unwise,” he added humorously, ”to have the engineering section directly behind the bridge. An explosion there would send a fireball straight through the control panels directing the s.h.i.+p.”
”I can't argue with that logic,” Lunzie agreed.
”I will give you the full tour later. For now, let's see what Lars has to say.”
There was a small commotion when Tee led Lunzie into the Communications Center.
”So, this is the lady who launched a thousand rescuers, eh?” winked a Human officer, twirling the ends of his black moustache.
”This is Lunzie, Stawrt,” Tee acknowledged, uncomfortably.
”A pleasure,” Lunzie said, shaking hands around. There were three officers on duty, the communications chief, Stawrt, and two Wefts, Ensigns Hull and Vaer. Hull, instead of wearing the standard humanoid form so widely used by Wefts in the presence of humans, had extruded eight or ten tentaclelike arms with two fingers each, with which he played the complicated board before him.
Hull tapped her with one of the attenuated digits on his fifth hand. ”You would like to view your message? Would you care to step into that privacy booth?” Another hand snaked over to point at a door on an interior wall.
”Tee, would you come and listen, too?” Lunzie asked quietly, suddenly uneasy.
The privacy booth was a very small compartment with thick beige soundproofing on all walls, floor and ceiling. Any words spoken seemed to be swallowed up by the pierced panels. In the centre of the room was a standard holofield projector, with chairs arranged around it. Lunzie took a chair, and Tee settled down beside her. She half expected him to take her hand but he didn't touch her. In fact, except for when she'd practically fainted into his arms when she woke up, he hadn't touched her at all.
”Press this red b.u.t.ton to start,” Tee said, pointing to a small keypad on the arm of her chair. 'The black stops transmission, the yellow freezes the action in place, and the blue restarts the transmission from the beginning.”
Lunzie touched the red b.u.t.ton, feeling very nervous.
In the holofield, the image of Lars appeared. He, like Tee, had aged slightly. His hair was thinner, he was getting thicker around the middle, and the pursed lines at the side of his mouth were deeper.
”Ancestress,” Lars began, bowing. ”I'm happy to hear that you have been recovered safely. When you didn't arrive on schedule, we were very concerned. Ensign Janos was kind enough to tell me the whole story. ”I am very sorry to tell you that Mother isn't here any more. She arrived, as scheduled, two years after we heard from you.” The dour face smiled at his memories. ”She was so delighted when we sent a message to her that you were expected. Ancestress, she waited eighteen months more for you. Since we had not heard further from you, we were forced to conclude that you had changed your mind. I know now that was an erroneous judgment. I am sorry. You will still be more than welcome if you come to Alpha Centauri. My grandchildren have been nagging me to make sure I remember to extend the invitation. Well, consider it extended.
”Before she left for Eridani, she recorded the following holo for you.” Lars hastily blinked out, to be replaced by a larger image of Fiona's head and shoulders, which meant that the recording had been made on a communications console. Now, more clearly than before, Lunzie could see the resemblance in the older Fiona to the child. Age had only softened the beautiful lines other face, not marred them. The hooded eyes were full of experience and confidence and a deep, welling grief that tore at Lunzie's heart. Her eyes filled with tears as Fiona began to speak.
”Lunzie, I guess that you aren't coming. What made you change your mind?
”I wanted to see you. Truly, I did. I resented like h.e.l.l having you go away from me when I was a girl. I mean, I understood why you went, but it didn't make it any easier. Uncle Edgard came to get me after the s.h.i.+pwreck, and took me to MarsBase. It was nice. I roomed with cousins Yonata and Immethy, his two daughters. I worried so much about you, but then time went by, and I had to stop worrying, and get on with my life. You know by now I went into medicine,” the image grinned, and Lunzie smiled back. ”The family vocation. I worked hard at it, got good grades, and I think I earned the respect of my professors. I would have given anything to hear you tell me you were proud of me. In the end, I had to be proud of myself.” Fiona seemed to be having trouble getting the words out. Her eyes were bright with tears, too.
”I was proud of you, baby,” Lunzie whispered, her mouth dry. ”Muhlah, I wish you knew that.”
”I got to be pretty good at what I did,” Fiona continued. ”I joined the EEC and racked up a respectable service record. Your mother's brother Jermold hired me; I think he's still working the same desk job in Personnel, even at his advanced age. I've been all over the galaxy in the service, though I've seen mostly new colony worlds in their worst possible condition-suffering from disease epidemics! - but I have had a great time, and I loved it. They think they're rewarding me by a.s.signing me to a desk job.
”Lunzie, there are a thousand things I want to tell you, all the things I thought about when you went away. Most of them were the resentful mutterings of a child. I won't trouble you with those. Some were beautiful things that I discovered that I wanted so to share with you. I wish you could have met Garmol, my husband. You and he would have gotten along so well, though we've always had itchy feet, and he was the original ground-bounder. But the most important thing I wanted to let you know is that I love you. I always did, and always will.
”I have to leave for Eridani now, and a.s.sume the duties of my office as Surgeon General. I've made them wait for me as long as I've dared, but now I must go.
”Lunzie ...” Fiona's voice became very hoa.r.s.e, and she stopped to swallow. She cleared her throat and raised her chin decisively, the image of her eyes meeting Lunzie's across the light years. ”Mother, goodbye.”
Lunzie was quiet for a long time, staring at the empty holofield long after the image faded. She shut her eyes with a deep-chested sigh, and shook her head. She turned to Tee, almost blindly, lost in her own thoughts.
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