‘It’s all right,’ said Jarek, ‘just the ship’s systems shutting down. Basic life-support and gravity are hardwired, so there’s nothing to worry about there.’
Taro nodded to show he understood, even though he didn’t. After a while he said, ‘Is there a countdown or something?’
‘Nope. You’ll know when it happens.’
Taro tried to relax.
The change wasn’t violent, but it was sudden. One moment he was sitting next to Jarek, a little apprehensive despite the drugs, with all sorts of stuff going through his head.
The next he was somewhere else. Or rather
here
was somewhere else. His eyes still registered the now-familiar room, but it didn’t mean anything. Or perhaps it meant everything. Perhaps the way that thing-he-had-no-name-for lay across that other thing-he-had-no-name-for was the true meaning of life, the key to himself. To . . . who? Who was this, doing all this thinking? And what was going on?
Wait, he knew the answer to this one.
Wrecked
, that was it.
Off his face.
Been here before. He lifted a hand, feeling the weird, complex pull of flesh and muscle. He focused on his palm. It appeared to be further away than the walls were. Now that
was
odd.
Somebody giggled.
Was there someone here? Where was
here
anyway?
He dropped his arm as a new sensation washed through him. He’d cast himself loose, cut himself off from everything he knew, everyone who’d been part of his life. That had been bad enough, but now he’d taken an even bigger step. This one took him out of the universe.
There wasn’t anyone out here. No one at all. Not even himself.
He’d lost his grip and fallen off the edge of reality.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Jarek could hear singing. He knew, in the bit of his mind still operating rationally, that it was only a shiftspace hallucination, but it sounded just like Elarn practising her scales. He listened for a while, because sometimes the best way to deal with shiftspace was to just let the weirdness wash over you.
The scales resolved into a tune, one he thought he knew, and suddenly he found he was crying. He didn’t fight the tears. His sister was lost to him for ever, and she’d died without forgiving him.
As he raised his hands to rub his eyes he remembered there was someone else here; he was spending this transit in the rec-room, not the bridge, because he had company. He blinked until his vision cleared and looked around. The room still swam and sparkled, but that was a common shiftspace effect. At first he couldn’t see anyone else. Then he looked down.
Taro was lying on the floor, curled into a tight foetal ball.
Jarek hesitated. He was accustomed to the altered states experienced during transit, but he wasn’t used to dealing with other people while he was in the shift. He would always remember Nual’s violent reaction the first time she’d gone into transit with him.
Taro, on the other hand, appeared to have gone catatonic.
Jarek knew better than to bend down. Bodies got unpredictable in the shift, and moving your centre of balance too far or too fast was unwise. He slid off the sofa, momentarily seeing himself as an avalanche of flesh, before firmly shutting out that particular illusion. He landed next to Taro. The boy didn’t move and for a moment Jarek thought he might be dead. He reached out a careful hand to touch his back. The flesh felt warm, alive, but Taro didn’t react to his touch.
He kept his hand where it was and called Taro’s name. His voice sounded muted, with a faint buzz to it - another shiftspace special - but Taro gave no sign of having heard him. Jarek hesitated, then put both arms around him. Though he had a good natural immunity to the effects of shiftspace - pretty much a prerequisite in his line of work - everyone knew of people who lost themselves completely in the shift, emerging irrevocably insane. He held Taro, saying his name all the while.
At some point he felt a change go through the boy’s body and he realised Taro was saying something, over and over. It sounded like ‘They’re all dead, they’re all dead, they’re all dead.’ Then he raised his head and stared blankly at Jarek with no recognition in his eyes. He started to cry, the deep, unselfconscious sobbing of a much younger child. Jarek wondered if he should talk to him, but he had no idea what to say, so he just kept holding him while he cried.
Even when the tears ran out Jarek didn’t move, though he could feel his legs going numb.
Finally, normality returned.
Taro gasped and pulled back, looking confused and embarrassed.
‘It’s all right,’ said Jarek, secretly relieved at how ordinary he sounded, how boring the world looked; he’d weathered another transit. ‘We’re out of the shift and everything’s fine.’
‘Is it . . . over?’ Taro croaked.
‘It’s over. I need to get up to the bridge now, but I won’t be long. I suggest you lie down because you probably won’t be good for much for the next few hours.’ He stood, and exhaustion, magnified by the usual shiftspace hangover, hit him so hard he almost fell.
What a way to make a living
, he thought, and hauled himself up the ladder.
The core systems restarted without a hitch. As soon as coms were up and running he paid the additional tariff for making a flash-transit and informed traffic control that he was just passing through. Then he slaved his com to the main comp, instructing it to inform him if any other ships arrived in-system, setting the alarm loud enough to wake the dead.
Taro had managed to get himself onto the couch and was dozing. He opened his eyes when Jarek approached. ‘I remember . . .’ he slurred, then tried again, ‘Was I . . .?’
‘Don’t worry. That kind of shit happens in shiftspace.’
Taro’s eyes were already closing again.
Jarek lurched off to his own cabin. He allowed himself six hours’ sleep, though he’d have liked twice that long. The alarm awoke him from a dream of trudging through mud in ill-fitting boots. He’d spent a lot of time doing that on Serenein.
When he got up Taro was sitting at the galley table drinking caf. ‘You’re looking a lot better,’ Jarek said.
‘I feel it. Shiftspace is well freaky. Thanks for looking after me.’ He nodded to indicate his drink. ‘You want one?’
‘Yes. Thanks.’ Jarek had been uncomfortable at the thought of having his haven invaded, but so far he was finding his guests surprisingly easy to get on with. Perhaps he’d been alone for too long; maybe the time had come to risk relationships that went beyond commerce or sex. He watched Taro tuck his long braid behind his ear, then bend down to get Jarek a mug.
And talking of sex
. . . whatever else, having the boy around gave him something interesting to look at - even if the little sod was a little too aware of how pretty he was.
Taro managed to stay quiet while they finished their drinks, but as soon as Jarek pushed his mug away he asked, ‘Can we wake Nual up now?’
‘I’ll make sure she’s all right, but I wasn’t going to wake her yet.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’ll only have to put her out again in a couple of hours. I’m afraid we’re going to make another transit as soon as the transit-kernel has . . . recharged.’ Jarek hoped Taro wouldn’t pick up on his hesitation. ‘I don’t know if the ship that shifted into the Khathryn system was Sidhe, but I’ve got a list of suspicious ships, and that one was on it. I’d like to put a few more transits between us and them.’
‘What about the time we spent in shiftspace? It felt like we were in there for hours.’
‘As far as anyone has been able to tell, no time passes in realspace during a transit. From the point of view of someone outside shiftspace, it’s instantaneous. Possibly no time passes in the shift, our brains just try and make some to keep us sane.’
‘That’s pretty gappy.’ Taro put his head on one side. ‘Any chance of something stronger to deal with the smoky shit this time?’
‘The first transit is usually the worst, but I’ll see what I can find.’
Taro insisted on accompanying Jarek to the hold. Nual was stable, all life-signs normal.
Back in the rec-room Taro said, ‘Can I ask you something? About Nual.’
‘Sure,’ said Jarek carefully.
‘How’d you find her?’ Taro added more uncertainly, ‘I could ask her but she don’t like talking about the past.’
‘Yes, I’ve noticed.’ Jarek should have seen that question coming. He gestured for Taro to sit again and tried to order his thoughts. ‘So, what
do
you know?’
‘You met seven years ago, and she trusts you. That’s about it.’
‘Well, we met by accident. I was taking a rarely used transit-path, trying to make up lost time after an incident with some unreasonable customs officials. When the
Judas Kiss
came out of transit, I realised I wasn’t at a registered beacon. I was deep in interstellar space, nowhere near any known paths or inhabited systems. But there was a ship there. I didn’t spot it at first because it had no running-lights and it wasn’t transponding. I tried pinging it, but got no answer. I went in closer. It looked like a huge bronze egg. I wondered if it could be an alien artefact - that would be a
real
find - but the design looked human; when I got up close I could see it had normal-looking airlocks and standard sensor apparatus. It reminded me of the old colony-ships, early Protectorate stuff, but they’re all long gone, except for the ones that got stripped down and incorporated into hub stations. The ship was dead in space, though I couldn’t see any damage.’ Jarek laughed at himself. ‘I started thinking of claiming salvage rights, but first I needed to check there was no one alive on board.
‘It turned out there was, sort of. It was a Sidhe ship, and there must have been hundreds of them on board, maybe thousands of people including their mutes. Only . . . something had happened. They’d gone mad, turned on each other. It must have happened a few days before I got there because by the time I arrived most of them were already dead and the rest - well, they just ignored me. A lot of them had mutilated themselves. Or each other . . .’
Jarek swallowed hard. He wasn’t likely to ever forget the things he’d seen on the derelict ship. ‘Nual hadn’t been affected because she’d been isolated from the rest of them. Later she told me she’d rebelled, questioning the authority on the ship, and they’d put her in a cell. When the madness started, she barricaded herself in.’
‘How did she know you weren’t one of these crazy Sidhe when you turned up?’
‘Because she called me to her. Somehow she pulled me out of shiftspace.’
‘That sounds pretty heavy.’
‘It is. I’ve no idea how she did it. She didn’t know herself. I doubt she’s done anything like it since, but she was desperate, scared out of her wits and half dead from thirst and hunger.’ He remembered that most clearly, his pity when he first saw her, filthy and naked - pity which, she later admitted, she’d amplified to make sure he helped her. Even now it was futile to try and work out how many of the choices he’d made that day had been truly his own. ‘When I found her, she couldn’t even speak.’
‘Had they . . . tortured her?’
‘Maybe; I didn’t ask. What I meant was that she didn’t know
how
to speak. The Sidhe on her ship hardly used verbal communication, unless occasionally to reinforce what they were “saying” - the way we use body language. They’d use certain sounds to add extra emphasis.’
‘So how did she talk to you?’
‘At first it was pure emotion: terror, pity, then when she realised I used spoken language, she read how to do that from me.’
‘How long did that take?’
‘About ten minutes, for the basics.’
‘Shit! That’s fast—’
‘Yeah, I know. Once we’d established communication, I helped her out of the cell and we set off through the ship. There were bodies everywhere, and some live crazies, but they hardly seemed to notice us. Then we bumped into a Sidhe who wasn’t mad, or at least, not totally psychotic. There was something different about her. Something . . . focused, I guess. By this time Nual was flagging and I was supporting her; this other Sidhe came up behind us, shoved me forward, and pulled Nual out of my arms. I stumbled and fell, but once she’d got Nual she lost interest in me and by the time I’d got to my feet she’d pinned Nual down on the floor and was staring into her eyes. There was some sort of silent battle going on, and Nual was losing. The Sidhe had her back to me, so I shot her. Then we ran.