The Middle of Nowhere Read online

  He told Zaffron of his puzzlement and Zaffron said, “Don’t worry about it. Just hang out with it for a lifetime or two. You’ll get it when you need to get it. Right now . . . you’re still caught on the upslope of the learning tantrum. Give yourself a chance. I promise you, you’ll get it—and if you don’t, you come back and see me and I’ll give you double your unconsciousness back.”

  Jon Korie promised to keep in touch and wondered if the feeling of profound enlightenment would last for more than a month or two. He said as much to Zaffron. “Sometimes I think I’m being conned.”

  Surprisingly, Zaffron agreed with him. “Yes, you have been conned. But you’re the one who conned yourself. You’ve programmed yourself into believing that things are the way you’ve programmed yourself into believing. Now, ask the right questions and you can invent a new program.”

  Eventually, Jon Korie did get the point. If anything important was going to happen in his life, he was going to have to make it happen himself. He began looking into education-assistance programs. The one that intrigued him the most was the orbital college.

  Stolchak

  At last, Gatineau found his way to the inner hull.

  Actually, that was a misnomer. In truth, he found an access through the inner hull; but through that access, he found the space that was generally called the “inner hull.”

  Translation: A starship is any bottle that holds air and moves faster than light. A liberty ship is a starship with enough amenities to be considered certifiable for Class Three life support. One of the required redundancies is a double-hulled construction. A liberty ship is therefore a bottle inside a bottle. The space between the two bottles is commonly called the “inner hull,” even though it is actually the gap between the inner hull and the outer one.

  In the Star Wolf, the distance between the two bottles varied from location to location; in general, there was a six-meter gap between the two hulls. In some places, particularly around the fluctuator spars, the gap was as large as ten or fifteen meters. In other places, especially near some of the airlocks and the weapons installations, it narrowed to slightly less than one meter.

  Although not immediately obvious, the inner hull was divided into airtight sectors; there were bulkheads every ten meters; class-five security hatches provided access. Class five was the lowest level of integrity, providing instantaneous closure and a secure seal against explosive decompression, but little more than that. It was sufficient to protect the life support needs of this space, but ultimately had proven woefully inadequate at containment when the Morthan assassin found its way aboard. It was on both Korie and Leen’s list of things to do (someday) to upgrade every hatch and bulkhead in the inner hull to Class Three or better. Preferably better.

  The inner hull was not—as commonly believed by non-starsiders—a dark empty space of mystery and terror. Actually, on most ships, it was a bright and amazing environment. First, of course, it served a structural function. The innermost fuselage (also called the primary bottle) was securely held in a framework of stanchions and cables; the inner hull provided easy access to these structural supports. A confusing maze of catwalks, ladders, platforms, stanchions, grillwork decks, access plates, tool bays, emergency equipment, network modules, pipes of all sizes, and gleaming light channels seemed to fill most of the available space around the primary bottle. There was also a bewildering welter of hatches, bulkheads, numbered panels, rods, girders, decks, and seemingly disconnected pieces of machinery. And everything here was studded with work lights and monitor displays. Sensors of all kinds were hung every three meters.

  Additionally, several of the starship’s secondary autonomic systems were channelled across the exterior of the primary bottle; fresh water, air, sewage, and information flowed through multiply redundant channels. By having the pipes strung along the surface of the primary bottle, easy access was provided for repair and maintenance. Like everything else, the channels were well lit and brightly numbered.

  The inner hull was also used for the storage of equipment and supplies. When deaths occurred in space, the bodies were also stored in the inner hull; as a result, some crew members found parts of the inner hull so intimidating they almost never ventured there. Scuttlebutt had it that the ghost of Captain Lowell still wandered around the inner hull of the Star Wolf; there had been so many modifications, additions, and changes that the ghost was said to be unable to find its way out.

  There were two other important functions served by the inner hull, both of them involved with life support. The first was—curiously enough—recreation.

  Away from port months at a time, a destroyer-class cruiser needs a place of “wilderness” for its crew, an opportunity to escape to a place just a little less orderly. Here could be found such homemade amenities as a half-size basketball court, which also doubled for handball; a rather odd-shaped swimming tank, ancillary to the auxiliary water-processors; a jogging track; a rotating climbing wall; and a number of smaller padded nooks and crannies, just the right size for the more intimate forms of recreation. The general rule for behavior in the inner hull was simple. Do no harm. Occasionally, it was phrased even more specifically: mind your own business. If it didn’t interfere with the safety of the ship, it wasn’t anybody’s concern.

  The second—and more important—life support function served by the inner hull was the processing of sewage and the production of food and air. Indeed, most of the inner hull was taken up by the farm. It was a lush environment, filled with leafy green things and delicious vegetarian smells. Over a hundred and fifty different kinds of plants were growing in aeroponic grids at any given moment; the ship’s seed bank contained over two thousand different species of fruits, vegetables, and flowers; they were rotated in and out of the farm on a regular basis. More varieties were added every time the starship docked and the Chief Petty Officer (or the ship’s lethetic intelligence engine) had a chance to negotiate a swap. The older a ship was, the richer its library of food plants.

  At the moment, the Senior Farm Officer for this tour of duty—the responsibility was regularly rotated—was a big, stocky-looking woman named Irma Stolchak. She was standing before a frame of aeroponic strawberries, regarding them with a frustrated expression. Two robots were moving up and down the wall, scanning each berry in turn, and chiming their approval more often than not. Stolchak plucked one of the berries off the wire frame and handed it to Gatineau. “Here, taste,” she commanded.

  Gatineau bit into it tentatively. The berry was sweet and firm and absolutely perfect. He popped the rest of it into his mouth. “Delicious,” he said, wiping the juice from his chin with the back of his hand.

  “That’s the problem.”

  “Huh?”

  “We did our job too well. These guys are ripening too fast—”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Gatineau asked.

  “I hate to waste. We have too much. We won’t have enough stasis boxes. Korie traded half of them away for new gallinium rods. Meanwhile, in the next ten days, we’ll have enough strawberries for the entire fleet. Plus, we’ve got peas and corn ripening, winged beans, amaranth, navel oranges, naval oranges, plums, blue gadoovas, sweet red neeners, and I don’t know what else. If we get green-flagged, we can sell some of it to Stardock, maybe swap a little with other ships; but I’ve been checking around; everybody overproduced. And everybody’s got the same good excuse; they’re all trying to get ready.”

  “Get ready for what?” Gatineau asked innocently.

  “What planet are you from?” Stolchak regarded him with a caustic expression. “They’re building up their stores . . . in case of battle damage. Look around. If we took a hull breach across two sectors, we’d lose a month’s food and at least 10 percent air regeneration capacity. So we have to make sure the cupboards are full, just in case. You can’t go to war until the crops are in the barn. Nobody fights on an empty stomach. Don’t you get it? The farm is the most important part of the ship. Do you know the story about the mauling
at Marathon? Do you know the first thing Korie did afterward? He came out here to the farm, and began planting beans. He knew. He did what was necessary to bring the ship home—see, that’s rule number one. The first thing you do is take care of the farm.”

  She sighed and made a decision. “All right, look. Let’s get these ’bots started and see if they can finish by dinner. These are the last two ’bots on the farm. Korie took the other four and swapped them to the Houston for an exterior hull-security network, a class-two replication engine, and another rendition of Dixie. Jeezis, I could learn to hate that song.” She turned back to her strawberries, still grumbling. “All right. We’ll put up preserves and press some syrup. We’ll freeze-dry the rest. The crew’ll have fruitcake under syrup for the next three months. They won’t complain. But I still wish we could grow a decent coffee bean . . . I heard the Valdez has figured out a way to simulate a respectable mountain environment. I wonder if we could get their specs . . . What—?” She demanded abruptly

  “Um. I’m not here for that. I’m looking for the moebius wrench—”

  “The what?”

  “The moebius wrench. The left-handed one. Candleman said you had it.”

  “Candleman said I had a left-handed moebius wrench?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “He would. Who are you anyway?”

  “Crewman Robert Gatineau, Third Class, Engineering Apprentice.”

  “Oh yeah. I heard about you. Here—take this rooter. You can help clean the sludge tubes. Take it! You want the damn wrench or not?”

  “No offense, ma’am, but everybody’s giving me orders and nobody’s giving me the wrench—”

  “You heard Korie, didn’t you? You know what’s going on. Let me tell you something, Gatineau. Everybody’s got to help everybody or nothing works. Yeah, I know this is scut work. But we don’t have the robots and the crops still have to be brought in. I was lucky just to keep these two for the farm. We had a Morthan assassin onboard. Let me tell you, that was a damn nuisance. It really hurt our confidence rating. Now we’ve got a shipload of strawberries and potatoes and corn and we can’t sell them until we get a green flag. No, not like that. Let me show you how to hold the sluicer—”

  “Um, I’m sorry, but I really can’t—I don’t have time for this—I need to find the moebius wrench—the sooner the better. Why don’t you just tell me who you gave it to and—hey! This does work better this way, doesn’t it? But—Chief Leen needs it badly. Please?”

  “You want a favor from me? Do one in return. Run that sluicer while I look around for the whatchamacallit. I’ve got more problems in the granary. We’re going to have an overflow crop of rice and barley and a bunch of other stuff Korie ordered planted on the way home. All that stuff should be ready for harvest any minute now. God knows what we’re going to do with it all. I’ve got only these two robots left and if I don’t watch them every minute, someone will requisition them, and I’ll be left with corn rotting on the stalk. You keep working,” she said. “Don’t let anyone take those robots, unless you want to take their place. If you finish these sludge tubes, start on the ones on the other side. I’ll be back in a bit.”

  Gatineau watched her go with a sinking feeling. He did not expect her to be back any time soon. That was how everything else was working out. Why should the farm be any different? He stood there alone, surrounded by green leafy things, most of which he didn’t recognize. The plants rustled as if in a breeze.

  “Why do I get the feeling I’m being watched?” Gatineau asked aloud. He turned back to the sludge tubes. “Pfoo. Yick. Eww. This stuff smells like shit.” He shook his head and bent to his work, muttering to himself. “Join the navy. See the stars. Have an adventure. Yeah, right.”

  The Black Hole Gang

  Korie and Chief Leen were visible only from the waist down, both lying on their backs, halfway under the Alpha fluctuator assembly, staring up into its stygian mysteries and arguing ferociously. Cappy and MacHeath waited to one side, looking both bored and skeptical. The four men were on the deck of the walkway above the harshly lit, three-story sphere of the singularity cage—“the little monster.”

  The argument coming from inside the fluctuator spar was both technical and superheated. Korie and Leen never conferred quietly. Nearly every engineering discussion between the two men had a volcanic component. Korie insisted on acting as if he knew as much about starship’s engines as Chief Leen; the chief had a different opinion of Korie’s expertise; but despite their frequent disagreements about the capabilities of the vessel, the discussions never became personal. Both men were consummate professionals and there were standards of behavior that officers had to obey. Mutual respect was one of them.

  After a moment, Korie levered himself out of the assembly. He waited politely while Chief Leen followed. He offered the older man a hand up. Leen ignored the hand and pulled himself to his feet, grumbling.

  “It’s got to be confidence 90 or better,” Korie said. “We don’t dare post anything less.”

  “Listen, I got the damn thing in, I got it working. You want a 90, it’s going to cost you another two days that you can’t spare.”

  Korie didn’t bother to acknowledge that. Instead, he asked, “What parts do you need? We have to make some more trades with the Houston tomorrow.”

  “The Velvet Bitch?” Leen looked more annoyed than usual. “What are you giving her?”

  “Belay that. You don’t want to know.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Okay. The Houston needs an autonomic reconstructor harness. With flatbed allowances. The Moran needs local-area targeting modules, D-6 or better. And the Hayes needs forty recombinant fluxor plates. They can get by with twenty. And we need anything we can get. I want to see if I can rebuild the control yoke on the Bridge. We’re still short two work stations.”

  Leen snorted. “I can help the Moran. Nobody knows it, but the O’Connell sent us a couple extra boxes of gallium-jacks just before we went out to meet the Burke . She didn’t have to do that. But I’m not giving anything to the Houston. You know how they treat us.”

  “Captain La Paz has offered to stop blasting Dixie at us every morning,” Korie offered.

  Leen hesitated. “She really does need a new harness, doesn’t she?”

  “Captain La Paz wouldn’t say, but I got the feeling that the ship’s autonomic response time has dropped to measurable levels.”

  Leen scowled. Even though it wasn’t his ship, he hated hearing stories like that. He scratched his beard. “What are you giving away?” he asked.

  “The list is in your in-box.”

  “Let me guess. You’re going to strip us down to our underwear, aren’t you?”

  “I’ve already promised your underwear. What else have you got?”

  “Figured as much.” Leen sucked in his cheeks, nodded, and bent to pick up his tools.

  “Chief?” Korie asked, concerned. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, why?”

  “You’re not screaming.”

  “Would it make a difference?”

  “No.”

  “Then why bother.” Leen picked up a damp rag and began wiping his hands slowly. “Face it, Korie. We’re not going to Taalamar. We’re not going anywhere.”

  Korie shook his head. “I’m not quitting.”

  Leen jerked his head at the Alpha spar. “You saw it yourself. Those grapplers are filthy.” He held up a hand for Korie to see the thin layer of black dust on his fingertips. “Nano-cancer! We’re being eaten alive.”

  “Scrub them again.” Korie sounded tired.

  “We did,” Leen said flatly. “Three times. And they’re still infected.”

  “Someone got careless—” Korie said without thinking. Leen started to say something nasty in response, but Korie stopped him with an upheld hand. “No. That’s wrong.” He looked at Leen sharply. “You don’t get careless. Neither does your crew.”

  Leen accepted it grudgingly. “Thanks for noti
cing,” he muttered. His tone shifted then, became more serious and straightforward. “Each time it’s been a different cancer. There’s a reservoir somewhere. That’s why we keep getting reinfected. Until we find it, we’re just wasting our time here.”

  Korie accepted the information without apparent reaction. He scratched his chin thoughtfully, while squinting up at the overhead, as if somehow he could spot the source of the infection just by looking around. “Goddamn that Cinnabar,” he whispered. Finally he lowered his gaze again. “I wish you weren’t so good, Chief. I’d much rather the explanation were carelessness.”

  For once, Leen agreed with him. “It’s your fault. You demanded excellence.”

  “Next time, don’t listen to me.”

  “Okay,” said the chief, with obvious exhaustion. “Where do we go from here?”

  “I dunno,” said Korie, still turning possibilities over in his mind. Abruptly he remembered something. “Failure is not an option.”

  “Yeah, I heard that before too.” Leen tossed the rag aside in disgust.

  “Brik was right,” Korie said. He turned to the chief engineer. “So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to strip the ship. We’ll trade away everything we can. With warnings that extreme detox measures will be needed. That also offloads our skillage burden onto the recipients. Mm. You can let the Houston have the dirtiest stuff . . .”

  Leen looked at him oddly, a question on his face.

  “All right,” admitted Korie. “It’s not just La Paz. Yeah, she pisses me off, but we go back a long way, and she’s always pissed me off, so that’s not it. She wants to go to Taalamar. She really wants in on that action. If she gets our fibrillators, she’ll have an engine. And she’ll go. And you and I both know what shape the Houston is in. They don’t have a Chief Leen. That ship is going to come apart in the water, the first time someone throws a torpedo at them. I really hate to say this, but if we keep her from getting certified, we’re saving some lives. They’ll get our fibrillators eventually, I know that, but let’s make sure it’s too late to do them any good. And don’t bother to detox anything they’re going to get. Let them spend the time. It’ll help keep them at home.”