Island in a Sea of Stars (4 page)

Iswander had been prepared for that. “Yes, I made some risky investments.” In fact, four of them had crashed and he'd lost everything, but one paid off—enough that he could keep going. “Roamers can't forget how to live on the edge. That's where the profit is. If Roamers made only safe choices, we would have died out long ago. I understand what it is to be a Roamer.” He looked around the room. “And I also understand that we're citizens of the Confederation now, not isolated outlaws hoping that we're never discovered. It's time to come into the daylight and be who we're supposed to be.” He smiled, summing up, “That's why I'd appreciate your vote for Speaker. I can see the Guiding Star, and I know where it leads.”

Next, for his own summation, Sam Ricks couldn't articulate a reason as to why the clan should vote for him. Iswander took a moment to say, “Thank you for your time.” He wanted to leave the chamber, but knew he had to stay and shake hands and chat with other clan representatives. He had done well, hammered home his point. Ricks was not a serious challenger.

Before the chamber was dismissed, Olaf Reeves bustled out with his younger son Dale and two other family members. “Vote for whichever man you like. You aren't the same Roamer clans we once belonged to.”

5

ELISA REEVES

Though her ship was faster than Garrison's, the search was tedious. Elisa raced along the course her husband had set, making up for lost time in open space. But she had to wait for the
ping
from her breadcrumb tracking devices.

It was tedious and time-consuming. She had to stop and find the little beacon buoy that was automatically dropped off each time he changed course. Then she would take readings, adjust her own course, and head off again. But she didn't consider giving up or letting him get away with her son—not for a minute.

She had found three breadcrumbs already and followed the staggering path. Garrison's navigation made no sense. If she could figure out where he was going with Seth, she could head straight there and intercept him. But his flight was erratic, zigzagging across space, heading out into nowhere.

Why would he want to do that, unless he was trying to hide from her? Maybe he guessed that she was hunting for him. Yes, in some ways Garrison was a smart man. She clenched her jaw. In some ways, though, he was a fool.

As she drifted in space near another breadcrumb buoy, she looked at where he was headed now. Garrison didn't seem to be aiming for any particular star system, no known Roamer outpost, no Confederation planet.

She activated her stardrive and headed after him again.

Her personal mission had focused her for days. Though she'd remembered to bring work along—documents to review, processes to audit and, if possible, streamline—she hadn't been able to think about her job since she raced away from Sheol. And she resented Garrison for that too.

By now, Lee Iswander would be making his case to the Roamer clans at Newstation. Normally, in his absence, Elisa would have been left in charge of the lava-processing operations, but since she had to take care of this nonsense, Iswander would have turned over the responsibility to Alec Pannebaker. She should have been his choice.

Iswander must think that she was not reliable after all, that she was one of “those” professional women who couldn't balance family matters with business necessities. Elisa did not want to be seen as a woman like that. She had worked too hard, devoted too much of her life, made too many sacrifices to get where she was.

All along she had thought Garrison was her partner with the same goals, seeing an intensely bright Guiding Star—to use a metaphor from the silly Roamer superstition.

As Elisa cruised along, not knowing how soon she might encounter the next shifting point, she called up her personal image library and scrolled through to find a photo of Seth (not that she had forgotten what her own child looked like, thank you!). The first photo she found was a portrait of herself and Garrison, both smiling as they held the one-year-old boy. Happy times. Elisa frowned when she saw it, recognizing the silly delusion in her eyes.

Without thinking, she deleted the image, scrolled through the library, and found another one of Garrison and Seth laughing as they ate some gelatinous pasta meal they had cooked together. She deleted the second image as well.

She didn't like to be reminded of that, and when she finally took Seth back, she did not want her son to be able to view and remember enjoyable times with his father.

She found several more images of Garrison and Seth at different ages. Then two of herself and Garrison, and she deleted those as well. Elisa didn't need to be taunted by her mistakes. Even more photos of Garrison and Seth. What did he do, spend all of his time staging images of them? No wonder he hadn't advanced far in his job.

But she couldn't find any warm, smiling photos of just herself and Seth. And since Garrison was so keen to take images, he must have done it on purpose, intentionally leaving her out.

She finally uncovered several images of just the boy alone, which she kept. Elisa displayed them on the cockpit screens. That was a sufficient reminder, and she could always use her imagination to place herself there alongside him. It would be good enough.

Though she didn't need to shore up her resolve, she studied the shape of his nose, the curve of his smile, tried to determine how much of his features looked like her. She saw hints of Garrison there too—that couldn't be helped. Seth was still her son, regardless.

Her ship stopped at the next breadcrumb tracker, and she reoriented her nav system, studying the new course. She shook her head. “Where the hell is he going? That's the middle of nowhere.”

She flew off again, increasing speed, because by now she was growing impatient and angry. The course took her out into an emptiness well outside the nearest star system.

When she arrived and scanned the area for signs of Garrison's stolen ship, Elisa found that the area was not empty at all. She encountered a cluster of large globules, greenish-brown spheres brought together through gravity or some kind of willful motion. The cluster looked like a miniature galaxy, with hundreds of other globules floating around the periphery. Trails of outliers extended across the emptiness, marking some kind of mysterious trail through the void. She had never seen anything like it.

She wondered if Garrison had come here on purpose, if he intended to hide this strange anomaly from her and from Iswander Industries. The magnetic tracking device had stopped transmitting, but as she extended her sensors, she detected the stolen ship.
Found you!

Yes, Garrison was here. That was what mattered.

6

LEE ISWANDER

After making his formal case to the Roamer clans, Lee Iswander returned to Sheol, anxious to get back to business. Though he could have spent days in meaningless meetings at Newstation, chatting with clan heads and Confederation trade representatives, he had obligations at his lava-processing operations.

Iswander enjoyed his time alone in the cruiser, but the flight seemed long. After the first few hours of putting his notes and his thoughts in order, he wanted to be back in his office. Once elected Speaker, he would have to rely on Alec Pannebaker and Elisa Reeves for the day-to-day work. Though he liked being a hands-on person, showing good leadership by being there and being
involved
, some things would have to change. That was the price one paid to move forward.

Approaching the hot binary planet, he deployed the cruiser's heat shield and descended toward the magma operations. From space, the broken planet looked dangerous, two halves playing tug of war, but he was not here as an astronomical tourist. He radioed ahead to let Pannebaker know he was coming. “Prepare a production summary for me, please.”

“Got it already, Chief. I do my homework before I have fun—and by the Guiding Star there's lots of fun now. Thermal instabilities, more than usual. Three lava geysers. One shoots half a kilometer into the atmosphere.”

“Does it pose any danger to our facilities?”

“No, it's five kilometers away from the towers, but worth the trip to go see. I'll take you out there if you like.”

“I'll just look at your images, Mr. Pannebaker. I'm sure you've taken hundreds.”

“Thousands, actually. Got to get just the right frame. We'll show them off to Captain Kett. She'll appreciate it.”

The head of the Confederation's largest trading fleet, Rlinda Kett was due to arrive at Sheol to take a large cargo of metal products to Newstation. It was a symbolic gesture to impress the clan heads, and the hearty businesswoman knew that full well. But she had agreed to do it, so long as he gave her sufficient inducement.

“A bribe?” Iswander was familiar with the way business and politics worked, but he hadn't thought Rlinda Kett would be so blatant about it when he had approached her.

“Not at all,” she said, when they had met earlier at Newstation. “Shipping terms—I want two percent reduction in my costs on all exports from Sheol.”

Iswander frowned, but knew a negotiation when he saw one. “Pure ingots only.”

“No—ingots, processed-metal foams, alloy films. Two percent reduction across the board.”

Iswander offered, “Two percent on ingots, one percent on other specialty materials.”

Rlinda was a big, dark-skinned woman who had only grown bigger over the years. She had let out a loud laugh. “Good enough—and we're done here.I'll have Robb Brindle and Tasia Tamblyn handle the details and draw up the paperwork. They're the ones really in charge of my company.”

After a handshake, they had set up a date for her
Voracious Curiosity
to fly to Sheol to pick up the large shipment of materials. For the upcoming election, he had particular timing requirements, though it had to look casual.

Iswander flew in using the cruiser's assisted piloting, as thermal disturbances roiled up to shake his ship from side to side. The cracks below were like arterial wounds that spilled molten metals and incinerated rock. His extraction facilities rode in the hot seas, plated with ultra-heat-resistant materials so they could scoop up fresh molten metals. Alloy processors and fabrication chambers in Tower Two created exotic metal foams and films, useful mixtures with polymers and ceramics.

He steered clear of the lava plumes that had so excited Pannebaker, aiming for the cluster of stilted extraction structures, the three towers, and the anchored landing platform. His cruiser settled into place, and he waited while a protective tunnel extended, so that he could transfer into the shielded admin tower.

Pannebaker met him in the office on the high deck of the tower, grinning as he handed Iswander the report he wanted, anxious to be rid of it. He was a competent engineer with management abilities, but no great fondness for administrative work—in other words, the best kind of deputy.

Pannebaker had silvery-gray hair and intense eyes, as well as a mustache that framed his mouth all the way down to his chin; he grew it strictly because it was completely out of style. Every day in the Sheol lava mines excited him like an adrenaline rush.

“The shipment of ingots is ready for Captain Kett, sir—our purest, most expensive stuff,” Pannebaker said. “But I also included the exotic materials that'll really impress the Roamers.”

“I already impressed the Roamers with my speech at Newstation,” Iswander said. “Really, I can't imagine any other adequate choice. Speaker Seward set the bar so low by being, uh …
nothing
. And Sam Ricks doesn't have any credentials.”

Pannebaker was not interested in clan politics. “Whatever you say, Chief. But you'll want to look at those geological reports. Heat plumes are rising—which is great because it adds purer material to the mix, but the temperatures are outside the norms. With the construction materials we used, we're awfully close to tolerances. Could be something to worry about if it gets hotter.”

Iswander wondered if Garrison Reeves had legitimate concerns after all—which reminded him, “Any word yet from Elisa?”

“None, Chief. Isn't she taking personal time?”

“Yes, but I thought she'd be back by now.” Iswander was worried about her. Elisa would never take the time away from work unless the situation was as serious as she claimed. Her husband was an adequate worker—and Iswander had plenty of adequate workers—but he could not replace Elisa Reeves. He hoped her family problems didn't interfere with her job performance.

Iswander was fortunate that his own wife never posed any problems, never interfered, and never demanded too much. He had made the terms clear when he'd entered the marriage, needing a woman who was willing to operate within those parameters.

Now that he was back on Sheol, Iswander considered going to the residence deck to see his family, greet his son (who certainly revered his father), give Londa a peck on the cheek, answer her few rote questions … but he could do that later. Right now, he wanted to settle into his office, which, truth be told, felt more like home than the residence deck did anyway.

When Iswander did take the time to review the geological reports that Pannebaker provided, he began to frown. The tidal stresses were higher than any previously recorded in eighteen years of study. Had they missed something?

In his initial warning, Garrison Reeves claimed that he'd uncovered second- and third-order oscillations in the orbiting planetary fragments, which would begin a cycle that brought the two halves even closer, a miniscule difference in an astronomical sense, but enough to increase the tidal heating. The magma already flowed upward at a higher temperature, heat plumes intensified, quakes struck more frequently, all of which had implications for the stability of his processing structures.

Although Lee Iswander didn't waste money on protective measures far beyond what was necessary, he did have a healthy respect for the inherent hazards here. The Sheol facility was dangerous by its very nature, but he had enough heat shielding to offer adequate—though not overly foolish—protection. Nevertheless, he would have to look into this in greater depth—discreetly, so as not to cause a panic. Garrison Reeves had already caused enough trouble.