John E. Stith - Redshift Rendezvous

Redshift Rendezvous by John E. Stith

http://www.neverend.com

WARNING: Read This Guide Before Boarding theRedshift.

The environment aboard a hyperspace craft is quite safe as long as you are careful.The management

reminds you thatthe speed of light on board this craft is ten meters per second. Or about 30 million

times slower than what you are used to.This means you will frequently encounter relativistic effects and

optical illusions.

NEVER TAMPER WITH YOUR LIFEBELT OR ATTEMPT TO UNFASTEN IT. THE FIELD IT

GENERATES ALLOWS YOUR NEURAL TRANSMISSIONS TO OPERATE AT NORMAL

SPEEDS AND IT IS ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL TO YOUR HEALTH.

1.Use only the ship's master clock displays.Do not rely on your personal timepiece; it will accurately

record your personal subjective time,but it will never agree with any other timepieces until you reset it

when you leave the ship.

2.Remember that everything you see and hear is at least slightly in the past,due to the time it takes sound

and light to travel.The closest things to you are the most current.

3.Trust what your hands tell you rather than believing your eyes.Bending light can make you think a

convex floor is concave.Colors may shift and shapes may distort.

4. Go slow. Limit your speed to a fast walk until you are familiar with the environment.Please heed the

traffic rules.By running fast,it is possible to exceed the speed of sound,which is only 6.7 meters per

second.

5.Never assume anything.

6.Have a nice trip.

"Phenomena Aboard theRedshift" gives further details,as well as the required liability disclaimer.

Chapter One

Prelude to Hyperspace

Either she wanted to be found,or I simply had a stroke of luck in coming upon her at just the right

moment.Since luck and I had never been on very good terms,I naturally assumed Jenni Sonders had

been waiting for someone to show up.

I was down on level two of theRedshift, on my rounds,making sure my eyes told me the same story I

got from the ship's status panels and the rest of the crew.Not that I distrusted either the indicators or the

people— I just didn't like to rely entirely on reported observations, even if the optical illusions on the

Redshift were enough to make my own eyes less trustworthy than sensors.

In the high-gee field of level two,my feet scuffed the floor as I walked along the equatorial corridor.

Closely spaced ceiling lights lit the gray corridor walls and the charcoal deck floor.The cargo bays I'd

surveyed so far had been packed with expensive machinery,containers of rare metals,exotic foods,unique

fabrics...the staples of a typical hyperspace run; items not universally available,and expensive enough to

justify passage.Nothing so far had been out of the ordinary,but ahead and on my right a cargo bay door

was not entirely closed.

The door was open the width of a hand.I glanced through the gap and then slid the door all the way

open.The bay was full of labelled crates,mostly rectangular,in a multitude of sizes.Near the center of the

bay,a passenger sat atop a tall stack of crates,hugging her knees,looking forlorn and tired, like a lost child

.The woman's hair nearly touched the deck overhead.She must have crawled up a staircase of crates to

reach her resting place near the centre aisle.

The woman was Jenni Sonders.I remembered seeing her boarding,and I had talked to her once briefly at

dinner.She looked to be in her late twenties,about my age.She was a redhead,narrow-hipped,perpetually

sad— at least I hadn't seen her smile since she boarded theRedshift at Megorath.Her red curls hung

slightly lower than normal in the strong gravity down here.She wore off-white pants and a matching

long-sleeved blouse.The cuffs of both the pants and blouse were circled with violet bands in a chic

paramilitary style that looked good on her.

Jenni was far enough from me that I stood by the door and waited for indications of my arrival to reach

her.

After a delay long enough for light to reach her and return,I saw her head turn toward me.Suddenly she

was in motion,scrambling off her perch and behind a crate that nearly touched the overhead.

I frowned,trying to imagine what she might have been doing down here,wondering what was going on in

her head right now.She wouldn't be trying to steal; every cargo crate was securely locked.And she was

obviously ill at ease in the hyperspace environment; otherwise,she would have remembered that I'd had

ample time to see her before she hid.

I waited a moment,saying nothing,partly because I didn't know what to say,partly because I was curious

about what she would do next.She stayed hidden.

Finally,I called out,"I know you're there,Ms.Sonders.Why don't you come on out?"

There was a long delay,even longer than simple sound-transmission time,so she must have taken time to

think about her response.Finally her head showed to one side of the crate.She said nothing.

"What are you doing down here?" I asked,and began walking toward her.

A panicked expression came over her face and her lips moved before I heard her words."Don't come

any closer." Her voice was scratchy,as though on the edge of tears.

I stopped where I was.This wasn't going at all the way I had expected."I'm Jason Kraft,the first officer,

Ms.Sonders.What's the problem?"

"Go away," was all she said.I got the feeling it took quite an effort for her to say even that much.She got

back up on a high crate and scooted closer to the edge.She looked down at the floor from there,and

turned back to me."Goa way"

"Look,I can't just go away.I'm responsible for—" "Go away or I jump."

There was such pain in her voice that for an instant I considered honoring her request,but I couldn't.I

finally realized what this was all about.For whatever reason,she was apparently near suicide.But I hadn't

a clue what to do about it.I could call the ship's doctor,but by then she might have jumped off a pile of

crates.

Maybe someone trained in how to deal with people like this would have done things differently.I did the

only thing that came into my mind; I decided to try to distract her from whatever it was that was eating at

her.

"I would have thought the beds in the passenger cabins were more comfortable than a stack of shipping

crates." Impatient with the long delays of large rooms,I waited for her reply.She remained silent, perched

on the lip of the crate.

Calmly,softly,I said,"This delay between sentences makes it tough to talk.Would you mind if I come

closer?"

"Stay away," she said through clenched teeth.

I backed up to the wall and made a point of not moving at all for a good part of a minute.At last I said,

"You come here often? You don't look like one of the regulars."

Jenni sobbed once and was silent.Her lips opened and closed several times without speech,and finally

she said,so softly that I could barely hear,"Not funny."

"Ms.Sonders,I know how to fire a crewmember who's not making the required effort.I know how to tell

the skipper when she's made a rare bad decision.I don't have the smallest notion of how to deal with

someone who wants to commit suicide."

She tacitly confirmed her intentions by not correcting my statement,but she glared at me as though I

should know exactly what to do with a suicider,as though this kind of problem had a solution as

straightforward as artificial respiration.I felt suddenly inadequate,and at the same time a little like an

intruder.Maybe someone else would have decided the fairest thing to do was to go away and quit

meddling,but I couldn't do that.

As she sat there fidgeting,looking over the edge,I shifted my weight slightly so I'd be able to move

quickly if I needed to.I tried again to think of a way to get her thoughts away from whatever pain had

caused all this."You know," I said finally,"a fall from that height might not be fatal.You might just put

yourself in a lot of pain."

Some of her words were too soft to hear, or she wasn't able to speak clearly."...be condescend ing..."

"I wasn't being condescending," I said truthfully."You probably read the brochure that says the gravity is

two and a half gees on this level,but that's only at the floor.The gravity tapers off.Up where you are,it's

probably only one point five to one point seven.That means the average from you to the floor is about

two.And your terminal velocity will be greater than a fall in one gee by only a factor of the square root of

that increase.

Do you think hitting the floor at one point four times faster than normal will guarantee results?"

I hoped the overly clinical techtalk might jog her out of the rut she was in.Another way of looking at the

numbers was that she would hit the floor from her current perch as though she had fallen from a point

twice as high in one gee,but there was no point in giving her that encouragement.

While she appeared to think about what I'd said, I considered running toward her.With light traveling so

slowly in this layer of hyperspace,I could run almost as fast as the speed of light.I could certainly run

faster than the speed of sound.If I were to run as fast as possible,I probably could reach her before she

had time to react.I hesitated,thinking a better plan would be to talk her out of it,or to keep her talking

long enough for the mood to pass.

"Have you felt this way long?" I asked,changing the subject.

After a long silence she said,"What way?"

"I don't know what way you feel.I've never contemplated suicide.I've felt the urge to kill someone else,

but I imagine that's not quite the same thing.Why are you up there?" "I don't want to live."

I wasn't sure it was progress for her to say that out loud or not."Whydon't you want to live?" "...none of

your business."

Feeling less sure I was approaching this correctly,I went ahead anyway and said,"None of my business?

How can you say that? Have you any idea how many forms I'll have to fill out if you do this on our ship?

And with me as a witness?"

She sobbed again.She was still awhile and then drew a deep breath.She said clearly,"I understand what

you're doing.But I have to do this."

"Ms.Sonders,when I came down the corridor this door was open.I don't know if you consciously

wanted to talk with someone, or whether the thought was just at the back of your mind.But somewhere

in that brain of yours there's a voice saying you want to talk.I'm here.This may be your last opportunity.

How about if you tell me about it?"

She was silent for a disturbing length of time,but finally she said,"It's everything.One thing after another.

This was supposed to be my honeymoon trip." Her voice caught.Then she swallowed hard and went on.

"Two days before we were supposed to leave,he told me he thought this was all a mistake.He had

changed his mind.He's always changing his mind.He's still on Megorath." She drew a deep breath."At

first I thought going away and deliberately having a good time without him would help,but it was a

mistake."

Being spurned had caused all her pain? I felt a guilty sting of comfort that I would never be hurt that way.

"So you're in such pain that you don't want to live?" I asked at last, trying hard to understand."Or you

want to get back at him?"

Her head jerked around when my words reached her."How can you say that I'd be doing this to—" She

broke off,staring at me for a long moment before she looked down.She clenched her fists and said,"This

isn't just because of him.It isn't, it isn't." Her words were muffled since she didn't face me as she spoke.

"Say,I've got an idea," I said,deciding that moving to this topic had been one of my bad ideas."I'm

starved.Let's go up to the galley and get a late-night snack.Layne Koffer fixes a terrific sweet-Java."

She shook her head just as I finished speaking.She edged closer to the drop to the deck.

"Wait just a minute." I said quickly."I almost forgot.A message came in for you over the network.It

was—" I never finished the lie I had started.Instead I ran.

I pushed against the wall behind me,and I accelerated as rapidly as I could move my body in the high

gravity.If I could have reached the speed of light instantly,Jenni would have had no warning that I was on

my way until I was already with her.As it was,outdistanced a couple of my words but still gave her a little

warning.

I ran straight along the row between crates,my view of Jenni shifting into blue and then violet as I ran fast

enough for Doppler shift to tint the world ahead.The view of stacked crates to either side of me

contracted.

Jenni must have seen my violet blur as I approached,because she pushed herself off the stack of crates,

tilting backward so she would land on her head.I was nearly too late.

As I ran,I held my arms outstretched.Catching her was awkward,even though

I tried to compensate for her extra weight on this level.Her body hit my arms at about the same instant

that the sonic boom I had generated sounded loudly in my ears.I thought at first I had her,but a second

later I dropped her after all.At least I had been able to slow her down and reorient her so her heels and

buttocks hit the deck simultaneously.I fell heavily to one side.

She had been yelling from the moment I first touched her."Get away from me.What are you—ouch!"

Hitting the deck stopped the flow of words for only an instant; then the impact laced her words with pain

."You've got no right.Get away!"

Her remaining restraint broke and she began to pummel my chest with her fists.I grabbed for her wrists

to force her to stop.

Even up close the speed-of-light delay made it hard to anticipate Jenni's moves.My first attempts to

restrain her missed,but she knew what I was trying to do because she changed her tactics.She slapped

my face and a moment later I felt the wet result of four fingernails scratching deeply into my cheek.

Finally I got good grips on both of her wrists,which left only the possibility of being kicked or kneed.She

didn't waste any time.Fortunately she landed only two kicks before I was able to force her down against

the deck,straddle her,and pin her fists to the deck.

She lay on her back,breathing heavily,looking up at me because she had

no choice.As my adrenaline level began its descent to normal,I looked back at her.What had appeared

from a distance to be a tan was instead closely spaced freckles."Damn you," she said slowly,vehemently.

Jenni was unmoving for a long moment as anger put creases between her eyebrows and anger burned in

her eyes.Suddenly she put on a burst of energy,moving her hips,twisting her body,trying to jerk her arms

away from my grasp.I felt terribly like a rapist and I didn't know what to do next.

Jenni couldn't get free.It took her a while,but I could see her coming to the realization that she was

trapped until I decided to let her up.She lay still,looking up at me,while tears formed in her eyes.

She averted her gaze,clenched her jaw,and drew several deep breaths,staring blindly past my ear.

Her face plainly showed the effort it was costing her not to cry.The next minute she seemed to draw

back from the brink and just when I thought maybe she wouldn't cry after all,her body abruptly relaxed,

her eyelids closed,and tears began streaming out of the comers of her eyes.

I felt angry at myself because I'd thought I had an answer for every possible question,and here I was

possibly causing more pain than I was preventing.

I loosened my grip on her wrists,and Jenni began to sob.I let go entirely of one wrist,and her arm stayed

limp as her sobbing deepened and every muscle in her face seemed to tighten.I leaned back,letting both

of her arms lie unrestrained over her head.

I retreated a little more,and after a short time she moved her hands to cover her eyes.As if she didn't

want me to watch her cry,she raised her head and chest and put her arms around me,burying her face

against my chest.Her sobbing was convulsive.

I put my arms around her and let her cry.

She cried for what seemed to be a long time, only occasionally stopping for a series of deep breaths,

finally exhausting herself with dry sobs that gradually came farther and farther apart.

When she had been calm long enough that I didn't think she would start crying again,I said softly,"This

deck is probably no better than those crates.I'd better get you back to your cabin so you can sleep."

She nodded her head against my chest.I let Jenni dry her eyes on my shirt sleeve.

As I helped her stand up,my knees felt weak.I blamed it on the high gravity.

"What's your stateroom number?" I asked.

She didn't give any indication that she'd heard me.

I asked again and still got no response.Her thoughts seemed to be far away.

I walked her slowly from the center of the cargo bay to the door.In the corridor,I used a comm panel to

call the skipper,Bella Fendell.The rate-of-time difference between the level-two cargo bay and the bridge

up on level four pushed Bella's voice pitch high enough to make her sound almost girlish and excitable.

Bella was neither.

"Is Doc available?" I said."What's the problem?" Bella asked.

"Minor incident.It's under control. Iexplain when I get back to the bridge,but would you please have him

meet me at Jenni Sonders' cabin? I'm on my way there now."

"Will do.Anything else?"

"Yes.Which cabin is hers?"

There was a short delay as Bella looked it up.She did an outstanding job of keeping her curiosity in

check.

In the elevator I pushed the button for Five,the main passenger cabin level,farther out from the center of

the onion-skinnedRedshift. Jenni sagged against one wall.She looked away when I glanced at her.I didn't

know whether I had made an enemy for life— however short her life might turn out to be— or if she was

feeling a mixture of gratitude and embarrassment.

I looked instead at the elevator ceiling.The four comers had appeared to curve upward when we

boarded on level two.As we rose out of the high-gee field,and light started traveling in a straighter path,

the comers began to droop until the ceiling looked almost level.The less than one-half gee on level five

made it seem the elevator was still slowing down when the doors opened onto a wide,gray corridor

edged with black handrails.

The corridor dipped out of sight in the distance in both directions.TheRedshift was a spherical ship with

the gravitational warp at the center.Here we were far enough from the warp to be in a comfortable

gravity.Jenni walked by my side,staring straight ahead,a reasonably attractive zombie with bloodshot eyes

.

The heads and shoulders of a couple of passengers were visible in the distance,but we reached Jenni's

cabin without getting close enough to have to greet anyone.She hesitated at the combination pad long

enough that I was about to use the master,but then she opened her door.I took that to be a good sign.

Light from the hallway spilled into the cabin and bounced around the interior until it reached equilibrium.

The phenomenon repeated itself when I switched on the overhead lamps.A glance around Jenni's cabin

gave no obvious indication that she had settled in; all of her possessions must have been behind closed

doors and in concealed compartments.

"Jenni,I want you to lie down on the bed," I told her with my best command voice.I went to the closest

bedside table and opened the drawer.Besides aWayfarer Word, there was nothing inside.She moved

listlessly to the large bed and fell slowly backward onto it.Her limp body bounced once before coming to

rest.Her arms were flung over her head,and the violet rings on her sleeves looked for an instant like

handcuffs.

I continued my search,my shadow on the wall lagging behind my motions.The second bedside table and

the wall-mounted drawers were similarly devoid of drugs and weapons.I was about to check the

bathroom when the visitor chime sounded.

I opened the door to Rory Willett.He stood there with his case in his hand.His long sideburns together

with his growing bald spot gave the first impression that his hair was migrating.Prominent laugh lines

showed at the comers of his eyes.His white jacket seemed a little too small on his beefy frame.He looked

more like a seasoned gambler than a competent doctor.

"Come on in.Doc," I said.

"What happened to you?" he asked.He blinked a couple of times; probably he'd been asleep when he

was called.

For an instant I didn't know what he was talking about,but his gaze at my cheek reminded me how sharp

Jenni's fingernails were."I'm fine," I said."The resident here is the one who needs help."

I explained briefly what had happened in the cargo bay.Rory nodded a couple of times,glancing past me

once to look at Jenni Sonders lying on the bed.

Rory was either a good acquaintance or what some people might call a casual friend.When no tension

was present,his good humor was always ready; when rapid action and the right decision were required,

he was cool without being distant.

When I finished explaining,I said,"I'm not sure what you can do for her,but I thought your bedside

manner would be better than mine."

"I certainly don't doubt that." Rory nudged me from time to time about what he and others considered

my standoffishness,but he knew I liked him.He moved past me toward Jenni,and I went to the bathroom

to complete my search.

In front of the mirror,I realized the scratches on my cheek looked nastier than they felt.I used Jenni's sink

to clean off the dried blood.

As I had expected,nothing in her cabin seemed to be usable as a weapon,unless she chose to strangle

herself with her clothes.If she wanted that badly to die,I wouldn't stand in her way.

Rory was sitting on the bed next to her,talking softly, when I joined them.Jenni's gaze moved from

Rory's face,over his shoulder,and into my eyes.Her eyes didn't seem to be focusing very well,and she

looked puzzled.

"Whatever he's saying is bound to be right," I told her."The doc knows all about this kind of thing."

Rory reached into his case and retrieved a puffer of what I guessed to be a tranquillizer.He said

something to Jenni that I couldn't hear,and she looked back at him.She moved her arm closer to him,and

he puffed the medication into the skin near the crook of her elbow.

She still looked puzzled as she gazed back up at me.She didn't look away until the drug destroyed her

ability to keep her eyes open.After another moment,the faint lines on her face vanished.

Rory removed the cover from a small vial.He brushed Jenni's hair aside and swabbed medication near

her ear.Once finished,he looked up at me."Some night,huh,Jason?"

"Women will just die to get near me."

Rory nodded as though that was the type of comment he expected.He rummaged in his case for a

moment and handed me a small tube."Put some of this on your cheek twice a day.Three times a day if

you spend a lot of time on level seven.It will heal faster." "What have you got for her?" talk to her when

she's had a chance to rest.I don't know if she's a chronic or if this is her first time. Ikeep a close check on

her." His eyebrows rose and he looked at me questioningly."Unless you'd rather do that.She might hate

you for interfering,or she might actually be grateful if this was more to get attention than to finish her life."

"Don't try to get me involved.I don't know anything about medicine."

"You know that's not the issue.It would probably do you as much good as her if you did get involved.

Getting close to someone wouldn't hurt you."

I didn't want to talk about it,so I forced the thoughts away.I grinned at him and deepened my voice."A

man's gotta do what a man's gotta do."

"You're wrong,Jason.A man does what he chooses to do."

I took my time on the way to the bridge.I hadn't been officially on duty anyway.

I found Bella Fendell leaning back in a comfortable chair she had long ago moved from her cabin to the

bridge.Her feet were propped up on the console,and before her were multiple circular status panels

showing the current condition of systems all over theRedshi ft.We were cruising in hyperspace layer ten

at nine meters per second,nine-tenths of the speed of light in this layer.

Measured by the corresponding locations in layer zero,we were effectively traveling at about 1000 times

the normal speed of light.And the wind didn't even ruffle my hair.

"You're looking really nice tonight," she said,noting my fresh scratches."I assume your opponent came

out second best." She didn't ask me outright what had happened,pretending that she wasn't intensely

curious.I refrained from volunteering information so she'dhave to ask me.It was one of our rituals.

Bella Fendell was a large woman,described by some as maternal.Since I had never known my mother,

the expression was hard to evaluate,but Bella was rarely afraid to ask personal questions,whether they

were intrusive and prying or not.Not only was she obviously curious about my scratches,she was

probably even more interested in my having been down on level two in a cargo bay with a woman.

She waited a moment longer for my reply and then shook her head,amused.She grinned,her round

cheeks puffing out farther,and said,"So tell me.What was the minor incident?"

"One of the passengers,Jenni Sonders, wanted to kill herself." I gave her the whole story.

When I finished,Bella asked,"Do you think she'll keep trying?"

"Ask Rory.I'm no judge.How far is she traveling with us?"

"She's paid through Far Star." Bella knew that without having to look it up.When I had called for Jenni's

cabin number,Bella would have found out all there was to know about Jenni.

I glanced at the schedule on a wall screen."Ten more days.I suppose Rory would get in trouble if he

kept her sedated that long."

Bella gave me a wry grin."She is a paying passenger.We can't treat her like a sick pet."

"But she is sick,right? I mean she did try to kill herself."

John E. Stith - Redshift Rendezvous

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