Island in a Sea of Stars (3 page)

Garrison cursed Elisa in silence because Seth was listening on the helmet comm. Breathing heavily, he detached and deactivated the tracker—he wanted to smash it, but that would do no good. Instead, he just let it drift loose and free.

A glint of light distracted him, and several bloaters sparkled again. One nucleus flared with a bright flash. A moment later, another one lit up in a different part of the cluster. Two more flickered in some kind of pattern or signal, followed by three more sparking nearby.

Then, with a bright flare, the bloater closest to him sent out a surge of light. The flash washed over him and the entire ship, overloading his suit systems. His diagnostic screen went dark, as if the pulse of energy was too much for the sensors to handle. Static crackled through the helmet comm before he was left in deafening silence.

He struggled to make his way back to the ship's airlock. With the overload, his suit's life support was failing, but he had enough left to get inside. Without power assists from the suit's servomotors, he found it much more difficult to move.

Finally, with a crackle, the helmet comm came back on as a backup battery surrendered enough juice for him to hear a signal. “Dad, half our systems just shut down!”

“I'm coming back inside.”

Garrison crawled along the ship's hull, grabbing any rough edges to pull himself to the airlock. He hoped the controls still functioned. He hammered on the activation panel, got a faint blip of light in response, then nothing.

Around him, the bloaters were quiescent again. Garrison could already feel the cold settling in through his suit, though the insulation should have protected him for much longer.

His breathing sounded loud in his helmet. With gloved hands he fumbled with the access plate beneath the useless controls and managed to trigger the manual override, forcing the airlock door open. Garrison pulled himself inside, manually sealed the outer door, then used the chamber's emergency canisters for an air dump that equalized the pressure enough for him to open the inner door.

Seth grabbed him as he reentered the main cabin, helping him to unseal the helmet. The boy was worried, with good reason. Garrison reassured him. “I'm all right … but I wouldn't want to be outside during another one of those flare-ups.”

“Did you find what caused the static signal?”

“Yes, it was…” He paused, pondering how much he should say. “It was a device someone placed on our ship back at Sheol. Could be just a standard Iswander tracking device.”

The boy frowned. “Or maybe Mother put it there.”

Garrison hadn't realized it before, but Seth always called him “Dad,” while he referred to Elisa with the more formal “Mother.”

Garrison stretched the truth, though it wasn't an outright lie. “I don't know who put it there, but it's gone now.” He cracked his knuckles. “We'd better get to work. After that flash, we've got repairs to make. It could take days. Then, after we run a full check, I don't think we should stay here much longer.”

4

LEE ISWANDER

Managing the dangerous operations on Sheol was a tremendous challenge, but becoming Speaker for the Roamer clans was an even greater one. With Elisa Reeves gone, Iswander left the lava-processing facility in Deputy Alec Pannebaker's capable hands and headed off to Newstation.

Iswander never stopped looking at the big picture. Considering the business possibilities in the Confederation, opportunities that even the most imaginative Roamer clans had only begun to explore, he concluded that the united clans needed someone with vision to lead them into the future. He could fill that role.

He guided his personal cruiser toward the bustling station—and his future headquarters, if all went well. His cruiser was equipped with the best Ildiran stardrive, plenty of ekti fuel, a well-appointed interior, and redundant systems, but at first glance it looked like any normal ship. Iswander had plenty of wealth, but he found no advantage in flaunting it.

In re-forming their government, the clans had chosen Newstation as their cultural and administrative center: a giant, newly constructed space habitat orbiting a planet. Meanwhile, clan Reeves and their stubborn leader persisted in trying to rebuild the old asteroid complex of Rendezvous, but few people paid attention to them. Lee Iswander certainly didn't.

His cruiser glided up toward the giant toroidal space complex. Newstation rotated like a giant wheel in space, an old-fashioned but serviceable design. Plenty of traffic flitted around the station: cargo vessels, passenger yachts, diplomatic shuttles. The place was vibrant, and Iswander loved it. And Newstation was just the tip of what could be a very large iceberg.

He logged his arrival on the traffic band, asked for appropriate positioning and a docking slot. The traffic attendant recognized his voice. “Mr. Iswander! Right away, sir. I'll see that you get a priority berth.”

He flew his cruiser to the appropriate landing bay and his assigned ship berth. Before he disembarked, Iswander combed his hair and made sure his clothes were unrumpled. Even though he would not be addressing the gathered representatives until tomorrow, he couldn't be sloppy in front of one group of people, then dress in fine clothes and act like an esteemed leader in front of others. He had worked so hard at his persona that he had forgotten how to do otherwise. When people looked at him, they would think of a Speaker for the clans. Considering his credentials, there really wasn't any doubt that he would be elected. Still, he wouldn't assume.

As he entered the colorful turmoil of Newstation, Iswander made a point of greeting everyone he encountered, station personnel and visitors alike. Some of them gave him a sidelong glance and a cold shoulder, though most acted professional. Others seemed pleased to have a Roamer celebrity among them.

He took a rail shuttle that traveled along the circumference of the station, and though the rail was straight, the curvature of the torus made it look as if the rail shuttle were constantly heading up a steep hill. He checked into his rooms, found them adequate and comfortable.

His wife and son wanted to travel to Newstation for a vacation, but Iswander had always been too busy. Men like him didn't take vacations. Still, there was only so much fire and lava a person could look at. If he was elected Speaker for the clans, then Londa and their thirteen-year-old son Arden would move to Newstation and spend all the time here they liked.

In the room's cleansing cubicle he took a mist shower. The convocation would not happen until the next morning, and he intended to be well-rested and well-rehearsed. He had to convince these people that he was far superior to his opponent Sam Ricks, a man who had little fire in him. Sam Ricks didn't know business, didn't know how to interact with the Confederation. He thought he wanted to be the Speaker merely because it seemed like something to do.

Lee Iswander, however,
wanted
it. This was the next natural step in the progression of his career. His mindset and his business acumen was the right Guiding Star for the future of the Roamers.

In his quarters, Iswander sat reviewing his datapad. He looked through the windowport as the view slowly changed from stars to the fleeting lights of space traffic, the cracked surface of the planet below, then to the open field of stars again.

He called up his concise presentation, though he knew the clan representatives were familiar with his biography. (And if they didn't know who
he
was, what business did they have choosing leaders?) Some might call him pushy, abrasive … but he liked to think of it as being daring, unapologetic about his drive to succeed. Why should that be a thing to be ashamed of? He worked hard and wanted everybody to work hard, to exceed expectations, to seize opportunities that arose. The Roamers needed a bold man with an exuberant can-do attitude.

He could have spent the night in the shops, restaurants, or drinking establishments on Newstation, buying items he didn't want in order to earn goodwill from certain clan members, but he preferred to be alone. Rubbing elbows and smiling, and being everyone's friend—that was the hard part, much more difficult than envisioning spectacular projects.

In his quarters, he practiced his speech and wished he could have reviewed it with Elisa Reeves, because she was supportive as well as intelligent. She could give him that objective read and tell him what he needed to fix, whereas his wife would merely smile and applaud whatever he said. That was good for his ego, but not necessarily instructive.…

He rested, rose early, practiced his speech again, and found that the rehearsing only made him feel less natural, so he scrapped it all. He put on the suit that Elisa said made him look like a leader, and traveled to Newstation's primary meeting chamber.

It was a big room with lines of seats that extended up the curvature of the walls so that the attendees in the outer rows looked as if they might fall forward into the speaking area, but the station's rotation held them in place. Iswander assessed the clan representatives with their colorful garb, scarves, and embroidery, family markings, swatches of red, violet, blue. Many wore jumpsuits instead of formal clothes, even for such an important meeting. He touched his impeccable suit, wondered if he had made a miscalculation. The best response was to refuse to acknowledge it, and to proceed on a steady course.

Isha Seward managed the meeting from her Speaker's platform. Her shoulder-length dark hair was much grayer now than when she had first been elected as a compromise Speaker. She was plump as well, having gained weight during her administration. Iswander vowed that he would take care of himself, once he became the next Speaker.

The business trivialities seemed interminable. Iswander glanced over at Sam Ricks, who was casual—too casual. His rival wore his everyday work jumpsuit with a prominent green clan armband. By the Guiding Star, the man looked as if he hadn't even shaved! Could he not at least try?

Speaker Seward called upon Ricks first, and he delivered a rambling and uninspired speech that basically said all the clans knew him and therefore he would make an adequate Speaker.

When Iswander stepped up to the podium, he felt a renewed purpose. This was like the first day when his lava skimmers had produced exotic metals from the magma on Sheol, like the first shipment of prefab modules he had dispatched to Roamer asteroid colonies. The first profit-sharing bonus he had given his employees. He had built himself a pedestal of his own successes.

“I was born a Roamer, and I am still a Roamer,” he said. “But I'm a new kind of Roamer, because we live in a new Spiral Arm. I was just a young businessman back at the birth of the Confederation. I was one of the first to embrace our new situation, and I'll bring that new attitude to all clan dealing with the rest of the Confederation.”

The audience didn't sound as enthusiastic as he had hoped. Roamers had long resented the idea of big business, especially after being hounded for so many years by the corrupt and repressive old Earth government. But those outdated thought patterns were no longer relevant.

Iswander turned to the other gathered faces. “Because I was thinking big, I bought out my parents' stake in our clan business and began building new factories. We specialized in supplying modular space habitats and prefab domes for rugged planetary surfaces, where Roamers have always thrived. I made it easier, safer, and more lucrative.”

Sam Ricks let out a rude snort. “And you charge the clans as much as you charge Confederation customers. Anyone with real Roamer blood in his veins would give us better prices.”

Iswander was annoyed that Ricks would interrupt him, when he had politely endured his opponent's bland speech. “That only proves you don't understand business. My production costs are the same, regardless of who buys the units. It's business. Mathematics doesn't play favorites. My operations demonstrate the benefits of being pragmatic. For too long, the clans lived by the seat of their pants.”

From the Speaker's platform, Isha Seward said, “Sam, no more interruptions. Be polite.”

One man, dour-faced with a thick beard and shaggy gray hair, scoffed. “Be polite? Roamers sure have changed, and not in a good way. Convocations used to be an open exchange of ideas, now it's like some prissy court dance. Should we bow and curtsy too?”

Iswander recognized the man as Olaf Reeves, Garrison's father—an idiot by any measure. He wore traditional clothes with pockets, zippers, clips, and clan symbols embroidered on the fabric. Some might have called the clothes old-fashioned or woefully unstylish, but Reeves wore them as a badge of honor.

“I don't mind a frank and open exchange of ideas, Olaf Reeves,” Iswander said, then couldn't resist twisting the knife. “In fact, let me ask: Why haven't you finished rebuilding Rendezvous yet? If you'd let me supply prefab modules, as I offered, you could have completed the job a decade ago. There are far more efficient ways than your old-fashioned methods. I did make your son an excellent offer.”

“We didn't need your prefabs,” Olaf said. “We're Roamers. We're self-sufficient. We do what we need without help from outsiders.”

“I am no outsider,” Iswander said. “I am a Roamer, and Roamers adapt. I have adapted to the Confederation.” He was no fan of the stick-in-the-mud leader, and he realized now that Elisa's husband had probably fled back to the clan. Iswander crossed his arms over his chest, realized it was a defensive posture, and tried to relax as unobtrusively as possible. “I offered you a way to finish your project at Rendezvous, but you tossed it aside. I thought Roamer clans were supposed to help one another. Those who turn their backs on their cousins tend to fail.”

“You've had a few failures yourself, Iswander.” It was Sam Ricks again, oblivious to the frown Speaker Seward gave him. “I checked out your business record—a lot of risky investments. Some might call them catastrophes.”