David Feintuch - Seafort 03 - Prisoner's Hope

PRISONER’S HOPE

DAVID FEINTUCH

PART 1

April, in the Year

Of our Lord 2200

CHAPTER 1

Admiral Tremaine drew himself up, jowls pursed in indignation. "Who would you

believe—this young scoundrel or me?" Ignored for the moment, I held the at-ease

position.

That's not the issue." Fleet Admiral De Marnay gestured at the holovid chip I'd

brought on U.N.S. Hibernta across sixty-nine light-years of void. "Captain

Seafort is but a messenger. Your recall was ordered by Admiralty at home."

Through the Admiral's unshuttered window, the late afternoon sun of Hope Nation

illuminated his Centraltown office with dazzling brightness. A muted roar

signaled yet another shuttle lifting off to Orbit Station from the spaceport

behind Admiralty House,

I sighed; I'd docked Htberma at the Station just hours before, and my trip

groundside was proving no respite from the tensions of the bridge. Pd had no

idea Geoffrey Tremaine would be in the office when Admiral DC Marnay received my

report.

"Messenger, my arse,** Tremaine swung toward me, glowering. "You arranged it!"

I decided it was a question, so I could respond without fear of contradicting my

superior. "No, sir, Admiral Brentley made the decision jmd I wasn't consulted,rt

"A patent lie." Tremaine dismissed me with an airy wave and turned back to the

Admiral Commanding. "Georges, be reasonable—"

"It is no lie!** The savagery of my snarl startled even me. The two Admirals

glared, astounded at such an interruption from a mere Captain, the youngest in

the U.N. Navy. I rushed on, abandoning the shreds of my discipline, "Mr.

Tremaine, Lord God knows that if anyone should be removed from command, it is

you. But I'say again, I had no part in it. Admiral De Marnay, as my verity has

been questioned, I demand truth testing!" Drags and polygraph would quickly

confirm my statement or expose my lie.

Georges De Marnay got slowly to his feet. "You demand, Captain?" His tone was

glacial.

"Sir, I have never lied to a superior officer!" It was the one remnant of honor

I'd retained in my slide to damnation. "Three times he's accused—"

"Seafort, get hold of yourself. Be silentf"

"Aye aye, sir." Midshipman or Captain, there was no other possible reply to a

direct order.

Admiral Tremaine's choleric face shook with wrath. "You see the insolence I had

to put up with, when he had Portia! He—"

"Before you stole her from him." De Mamay's acid reply sliced through Tremaine's

diatribe.

"Stole her? What are you saying?" Before DC Marnay could answer, Tremaine rushed

on. "The facts are clear from Portia's Log, which you reviewed when I docked. I

had to threaten to hang him before he'd transfer to Challenged'

Better had he done so. Many would live who now were lost.

De Maraay said nothing.

Tremaine's voice took on a wheedling tone, "Recall or no, you're the Admiral in

theater. Those bloody aliens of Seafort's may strike at any time. You need a

commander groundside as well as aloft, and Admiralty didn't appoint my

replacement. As Admiral Commanding, you could reconfirm me until my tour's up.

Or try me yourself, for that matter,"

"Yes, I could well do that." De Marnay swung his chair, fingers tapping at the

edge of his desk,

I closed my eyes, my jaw throbbing with the effort to hold it shut. My commander

had ordered me to be silent, and silent I would be. In any event, nothing I said

could prevent Admiral De Marnay from reinstating Tremaine, the man who'd taken

my Portia. His own U.N.S, Challenger had been disabled by the huge goldfish-

shaped aliens that I'd discovered three years before on my first interstellar

voyage. Tremaine transferred his flag, leaving me, as well as the aged and

infirm passengers and the young transpops he loathed, drifting on Challenger^

deep in interstellar space, unable to Fuse.

After he fled, the fish had come again. We'd been testing the fusion drive, and

they seemed to sense the N-waves on which our ships traveled the void between

stars. Over and again, they'd Defused alongside Challenger to hurl their acid

tentacles at our hull.

I took a sharp breath, realized I was clammy under my stiff jacket.

"After all, Admiralty is far from the scene, eh, Georges? They don't know—w

Admiral De Marnay said, "I could reinstate you, Mr. Tremaine. But I won't."

Tremaine said slowly, "You'd believe that**—he spat out the words—"that trannie

Captain over me?"

"I believe the evidence in the Log, and in your conduct, sir." De Mamay's tone

was icy. "Admiral Tremaine, you are relieved. Mr. Seafort, you may go,"

"Aye aye, sir." I saluted and quickly made my escape.

1 trudged the back yard of Admiralty House to the spaceport perimeter and the

terminal building seventy yards beyond. Other than the hum of a distant engine,

all was silent.

At the far end of the tarmac, freight was piled high. My Hibernia's cargo would

soon be to the supplies and equipment stockpiled here for the U.N. defending

our colony from the aliens.

When last I'd seen Hope Nation I'd been so young, and innocent of the shattered

oath that damned me.

Though I was fully recuperated from my physical ordeal on Challenger, my

appalling misdeeds left me subject to fits of black despair. On our long journey

to Hope Nation my companion and lover, Annie Wells, had done her best to allay

them in the solitude of our cabin. ,

I wondered if Annie knew how I relied on her ministrations. Now even she would

soon be gone. I'd come to know Annie on Challenger; she'd been among the

transients from the slums of Lower New York bound for faraway Detour as

part of a foolish social welfare program. After Challenger's ill-fated voyage,

we'd sailed again on Hibernia.

We'd made the sixteen-month cruise in one interminable Fuse, with a tiny

corrective jump at the end. I'd docked at massive Orbit Station, taken the

shuttle groundside, reported to the now bustling Admiralty House, Admiral

Tremaine's recall orders among the packet of chips in my case.

Now I looked around, wondered what to do with my day before going back aloft to

Annie.

I wished I could talk over the morning's encounter with a friend like Midshipman

Derek Can, one of the officers I'd forced to stay behind when I was transferred

to Challenger. But Derek was stationed on U.N.S. Catalonia en route to Detour,

and not expected home for months. So I was alone, on my mandatory long-leave,

free of responsibilities. I had time to look up Vax Holser and the others.

As I crossed the terminal a whoop split the air; I turned to see Lieutenant

Alexi Tamarov bounding after me. "You're here! Thank Lord God, you made it!" He

snapped a crisp salute, grinning with pleasure. Then he saw my face and

blanched. "My God, what happened, sir?"

My scar had that effect.

I offered him my hand, relieved beyond words to see him safe and well, "A laser,

on board Challenger, It's healed,**

"You look—" He remembered his manners and bit it off. Friend or no friend, I was

Captain,

"Awful. Yes, I know." I deserved a ruined face. Lord God in his time would do

worse. An oath is sacred.

"Well, er, different, sir." He quickly changed the subject While he chattered I

reflected on all that had passed since/ our days as midshipmen in Hibernia's

wardroom, when" Alexi was a young fifteen and I, at seventeen, struggled toward

manhood.

After Hibernia's officers had been killed and I was catapulted to Captain, I'd

left Alexi in the wardroom. We'd shipped together afterward on Portia, but since

then we'd gone our separate ways for two long years. He was—what? twenty-one?—

and I was tired and numbed at twenty-three.

"God, I'm glad I ran into you, sir. I'm off duty today, but tomorrow it's back

to Admiralty House." He shrugged and

smiled wryly. "They have me working in Tactics." Like any lieutenant, Alexi

wanted ship time, which would give him a leg up toward promotion. His grin

faded; his eyes drifted from mine. "About what I did on Portia, sir, I'm so—I'm

ashamed."

"Did?" I tried to remember what he might be ashamed of.

"I wanted to volunteer for transfer, sir. I meant to ask the Admiral, but I

couldn't. I sat in my cabin for hours before I gave up pretending. Now I know

how cowardly 1 am."

"Stop that!" My anger thrust him back a step. "I told you then I wouldn't accept

you on Challenger under any circumstances. You're no coward."

"I should have volunteered." He turned away. "Whether you took me or not. You

had the courage to go."

"You fool!" I spoke so savagely he winced with the hurt. "If Amanda and Nate

hadn't died, perhaps I'd have wanted to live, I wasn't brave, I was running

away!" His look of dismay only goaded me further, "If I'd died I wouldn't have

become what I am now.**

Alexi's eyes met mine, troubled, What he saw there made him shrug and try a

tentative smile, "Whatever our motives, sir, we've done what was in m* I won't

Jet you down spin,"

"I absolve you, for what it's worth." To distract him I said, "They've relieved

Tremaine,"

"Thank Lord God, sir. But what about your challenge?*'

"You heard about that?" Livid with rage when Geoffrey Tremaine had off-loaded

Portia's transient children before fleeing to safety, I'd sworn an oath to call

challenge upon him, to fight a duel that would destroy one of us. Now that he

was relieved it was legal for me to do so. But what did that oath matter? I'd

already forsworn myself.

"Yes, we knew," Alexi said. "The Admiral wasn't alone on the bridge when you

radioed. And Danny recorded. He'd have told us if we hadn't already heard."

Portia's puter liked to gossip, no doubt to ease his loneliness. What a joy it

would be to visit with Danny again, as on so many deadened days on the bridge

after my wife's death. We'd become friends, if such a thing was possible between

man and machine. But I didn't even know where in the galaxy my old ship had been

sent.

"I suppose I have to call the challenge, Alexi." At the time I'd yearned to cast

my life against Tremaine's. Yet, Philip Tyre and the rest were dead, and nothing

would bring them back. With an effort I thrust recriminations aside. "What

happened to Vax?"

Alexi bit his lip. "He's here, sir. They have him running back and forth between

Admiralty House and the Station."

Lieutenant Holser was alive and well. My old rival, once my enemy, now my

friend. Twice he'd saved my life. "It will be good to see him,"

After a moment Alexi spoke of other things. Restless, I invited him to wander

Centraltown with me. He accepted with delight, and proudly led me to the

electricar he'd managed to acquire. They were in short supply thanks to the

population increase. I stared out the window as he drove downtown along

Spaceport Road.

Centraltown had grown since my last visit, but the town had no sights 1 hadn't

seen before, and what I saw reminded me of Amanda. For Alexi's sake I fought my

depression, and eventually settled with him in a downtown restaurant. He

respected my lapses into glum silence, and the evening provided more

companionship than I'd had in many months. When finally we left. Minor was full

overhead, and Major, Hope Nation's second moon, was just over the horizon, I

looked up, imagining I could see Orbit Station passing above.

"Have you a place to stay, sir?"

I shook my head. "I'll bunk on the ship for a few days, I suppose."

"I meant tonight. Would you—" He hesitated. "Sir, would you, ah, care to stay

with me this evening?" I understood his unease; the gulf between a lieutenant

and a Captain was normally unbridgeable.

"Annie is waiting on Hibernia" Still, it was late, and 1 had no idea whether

another shuttle would lift tonight; if not, I'd find myself sleeping at the

terminal or in Naval barracks. "Well... for the night. I'd like that." I was

rewarded with a shy grin of pleasure.

Alexi's flat was in one of the dozen or so prefabs that had sprung up along

Spaceport Road since my last visit. Sparse, tiny, and clean, it reminded me of

the middies' wardroom I'd once occupied on Hibernia, though it was far larger.

He said, "The bedroom's in there, sir. I'll take the couch."

How could I have not realized he'd have but one bedroom? "I prefer the couch."

My tone was gruff.

"You can't!" He was scandalized.

"I won't take your bed, Alexi." Rank or no rank, I wouldn't put him out of his

home.

"Please, sir." He patted the couch. "It's comfortable; I'll be fine. Anyway"—he

rushed on before I could object—"I won't sleep at all if you're bunked here

while I've got the only bed. Please."

Grumbling, I let him persuade me, wondering if his respect was for my rank or

for myself. Then I marveled at my foolishness, I was Captain, and he was but

lieutenant; what else could he do?

In the morning Alexi dropped me off at the spaceport and I handed the agent a

voucher for the early shuttle. Two hours later I was back on Hibernia, I debated

whether to check the bridge.

By naval rep, all crew members entitled to thirty days long-leave after a

ten-month cruise or longer, and during that leave only a nominal, rotating watch

was kept, in which no one was made to spend more than four days aboard.

Nonetheless, my footsteps carried me along the Level 1 circumference corridor,

past my cabin to the bridge beyond. The hatch was open; normally, under weigh,

it would have been sealed. Lieutenant Connor, to the watch officer's chair, was

leaning back, boots on the console. Her eyes widened in alarm as I strode in.

She scrambled to her feet,

"As you were, Ms. Connor." Had I found her lollygaggmg on watch while under

weigh I'd have been outraged. Moored, it didn't matter,

I glanced at the darkened simulscreens on the curved front bulkhead. Normally,

they provided a breathtaking view from the nose of the ship. And under our puter

Darla's control, they could simulate any conditions known. My black leather

armchair was bolted behind the left console, at the center of the compartment.

Lieutenant Connor, of course, was in her own seat. No one dared sit in the

Captain's place.

"All quiet, Ms. Connor?"

"Yes, sir. The remaining passengers went down on last night's shuttle, except

for Miss Wells."

There was nothing I need do. "I'll be in my cabin."

"Yes, sir. Miss Wells, ah, seems to miss the other passengers, sir." She looked

away quickly, as if she'd gone too far in speaking of my personal affairs. She

had, but I let it pass.

As I slapped open my cabin hatch a lithe form flew at me, knocking my breath

away. I hugged Annie with heartfelt warmth, grinning until I realized she was

sobbing softly into my shoulder. "What's wrong, hon?"

Annie clung. "All'em gone. Dey be downdere, alFem joeys. No one up here 'cept

me." Only under stress did her hard-won grammar and diction lapse into her

former trannie dialect.

I squeezed her tighter. She'd known that all the transpops awaiting

transshipment to Detour would be leaving, including herself, and had chosen to

stay with me a few extra days. I thought better of reminding her. "Sorry I

couldn't get back last night, hon."

She sighed, disengaging herself from my damp shoulder. "I unner—understand," she

said carefully. "Did yo' Admiral say where they sending you next?"

"No." I hung my jacket in the bulkhead closet. A third of the entire Naval fleet

was now protecting Hope Nation system. There was little chance Hibernia would be

the next ship to Detour colony.

Annie and I would have to part, and we both knew it. The only way we could stay

together was to marry, if she'd have me, and that would almost certainly cost me

my career. Admiralty was notoriously conservative; my disregard for regulations

and my youth already worked against me. Were I to marry a former transpop—one of

the ignorant and despised hordes who roamed most of Earth's sprawling cities—I'd

be blackballed. Though I'd never be told the reason, I'd be unlikely to see

command again.

"I met Alexi," I said. Both he and Annie had shipped on Portia, but she'd known

him then only as a distant, hand-

some young figure occasionally glimpsed in the corridors of Level 1.

"Nicky, I been thinking." As she calmed, her diction returned, and despite

myself, I smiled. "This staying on ship, it be no good," she said. "I ain—I'm

not ever going to see Hope Nation again, and you need time on real land. Would

you show me dis place?"

"It's full of memories." My tone was gentle. How could I take her where I'd gone

with Amanda? The comparison could only be cruel.

"I wantin'—I want to know your memories." I frowned and she rushed on, "Nicky,

yo' wife is dead. She ain' never coming back. You got to live. I won' be 'round,

but you got to go on."

That she was right didn't make it easier, but I owed much to her. "If that's

what you'd like," I said. "We'll rent a room groundside and I'll show you the

sights." The Ventures, perhaps; the breathtaking mountains of Western Continent,

where Amanda and Derek and I—no, this would be a different trip.

We could visit the plantations. Emmett Branstead, a passenger I'd impressed into

the Service on Challenger, had returned to Hope Nation while I was recuperating

at Lunapolis from my injuries. Despite his condescending and irritable manner

before enlisting, Emmett had proven a loyal and conscientious sailor once he'd

taken the oath. He'd left word at Admiralty House that I was invited to his

family's plantation whenever I could come.

His invitation rather surprised me; I'd have thought he'd be anxious to put his

involuntary servitude behind him. I'd met his brother Harmon, three years

before, on my long-leave with Derek Carr.

I put aside the throb of memories. "When would you like to go?"

"Today?"

I groaned; my chest still hurt from the morning's liftoff. Still, diving into

Hope Nation's gravity well wouldn't be half as bad as clawing out of it. "Very

well." I reached for the caller, set it down again. "No, let's walk to Dispatch;

I'll show you Orbit Station."

"I don' want to go to dat place."

"The Station is just like a ship, only bigger."

"There ain't no air around it. I don' like it." Groundsiders.

"It's as safe as Hibernia, and I'll be with you. Come, I'll show you around."

Protesting, she let me take her through the locks.

Imagine an old-fashioned pencil stood on end, with two or three half-inch-thick

disks slid halfway down and pressed together. That's a rough model of an

interstellar ship. Forward of the disks is the hold, in which cargoes for our

settlements are crammed, along with the supplies consumed during the ship's long

voyage.

The passengers and crew live and work on the disks. Each disk is a Level,

girdled by a circumference corridor, connected to the other disks by east and

west ladders. The bridge is always on Level 1. Hydroponics and recycling are

below. Aft of the disks sits the engine room, whose great Fusion motors

terminate at the drive shaft comprising the stern of the ship.

Orbit Station was like a stack of these disks, only without the pencil. And more

and larger disks. The Station had five levels, enough to get lost in, which to

my embarrassment I soon did,

"You tin' no better than a groundsider," Annie scoffed when we passed the

commissary again, "Jus* ask someone."

"Dispatching should be down this corridor."

"It wasn't the last time."

She could be maddening. "Come on,** We passed a sign pointing to Naval HQ but I

ignored it; though they could arrange shuttle seats for us, I could have done as

much from the caller in my cabin. My goal was to find Dispatching, somewhere on

Level 4.

Annie seemed as relieved as I when we finally arrived at the dispatcher's

office. A shuttle was leaving in two hours; time enough for us to pack. I let

the dispatcher provide us detailed instructions back to Hibernia's bay.

I came on a young officer lounging in the entryway of Naval HQ, and I stopped.

"Excuse me, Lieutenant, are you assigned here?"

He stiffened. "Yes, sir."

"Do you know Mr. Holser?"

"Holser? Oh, yes, Vax. The big joey." He grinned. "He's posted to tactics. I

believe he's at Admiralty House this rotation, sir."

"Please check."

A few moments later the man returned, another lieutenant a few steps behind. "As

I thought, sir. He'll be groundside another week."

"Very well. Thank you."

"Uh, Captain Seafort?" The lanky officer who'd followed.

I returned the lieutenant's salute. "Yes?"

"I thought it was you, sir, from the holozine pics. Second Lieutenant Jeffrey

Kahn."

"What do you want?" My voice was sharper than I'd intended.

"I—nothing, sir, except to speak with you. I wondered if—what it was like to see

the aliens, sir. For the first time." Those damned holozines. Just as the

notoriety of my discovering the aliens had begun to fade, my return with

Challenger had fanned the flames.

Annie gasped, wrenching her hand free. My face was hot, my throbbed, "Where are

you assigned, sir?"

"I was on Valencia, sir. Sorry if I—"

"If you under my command you'd be sorrier, Lieu-tenant. Dismissed!"

"Aye aye, sir. I apologize."

I stalked down the corridor, pulling Annie with me until she protested, "Nicky,

you hurtin' me,"

I let go of her arm. "The damn—blessed insolence! Interrupting a Captain!" She

scurried to keep up. "Just so he could say he'd met me!"

Annie spoke with dignified care. "There no harm being famous. You're lucky."

"/$ no harm," I corrected, my pace slowing. During our year on Hibernia I'd

labored, at Annie's request, to teach her Uppie speech and civilized ways. She

approached the English language as the study of a foreign tongue, which in a way

for her it was,

"Anyway, that's not the point," I said. "If one of my lieutenants felt free to

annoy a Captain I'd—"

I'd what? I didn't know. I recalled Alexi offering me the use of his apartment,

though it was a blatant breach of protocol. But we were friends, weren't we?

Shipmates.

No, that shouldn't matter. I sighed. Perhaps I'd been a touch hard on Mr. Kahn.

I browsed through listings in a spaceport caller booth and arranged apartment

showings. The furnished flats were expensive, especially on a lease of weeks,

but on a ship in Fusion my pay gathered unspent, so I could afford it. As it

happened, the second apartment we saw was but two blocks from Alexi's and for

some reason I liked it enough to take it without looking further.

We unpacked our few belongings and sauntered around our block. Annie devoured

the texture of Hope Nation with eager eyes. I promised her a tour of downtown,

we bought a few groceries for the micro, and Sun still setting, we went home to

bed. As we snuggled under the covers she made it clear that I'd get little sleep

that night.

In the morning, surprisingly rested, I strolled downtown with Annie, pointing

out buildings I knew. We passed Circuit Court, where years before I'd confronted

Judge Chesley in defense of my authority to enlist cadets. Near downtown,

several blocks had been set aside for an open park; we wandered amid its

greenery.

She caught her breath. "What's that, Nicky?" A Gothic spire lanced upward

through the genera trees ahead.

"The Cathedral, hon."

"It's beautiful."

So it was. On my previous landfall, I'd visited Reunification Cathedral, to pray

that the burden of command be lifted. "Shall we go in?" I took her hand.

The Cathedral's spires soared from thick buttresses of cut stone, each

testifying to the dedication and fervor in which the Cathedral had been born

over a century before. When Hope Nation was founded, the Reunification Church

had already become our official state religion. Though we tolerated splinter

sects, our U.N. Government was founded in the authority of the One True God, and

1, as Captain, was his representative aboard ship.

Annie and I knelt before the altar. I gave silent prayer, sad at the knowledge

that it must go unheard.

Annie waited behind me, in a pew. When I stood she whispered, "Look up."

I gazed upward at the ornate gilt-edged craftsmanship of the buttresses. "Yes.

Beautiful." I squeezed her hand.

"Place is so strong. I feel... safe. Don't wanna go."

Yes, she'd feel secure in Lord God's house, if anywhere. I stopped myself from

saying it aloud, "Detour has its own churches, hon." But none as beautiful as

this. Detour was too young, too raw.

"Let me stay here awhile." She ran her finger along the sturdy, burnished wood

of the pew.

"All right." I sat, took a missal, idly thumbed through it. Annie wandered.

"Sir? Is that you?" A plump youngish man.

I peered. "Mr. Forbee!" An old acquaintance. We shook hands. "I'd have thought

they'd let you retire again."

Three years ago, when I first arrived with Hibernia, For-bee was floundering as

Commandant of the tiny Naval station, eager to be relieved. "I suppose I could

if I wanted to," he said. His eye flicked to m^ scar, and away. "But with the

invasion, and all... as long as there are senior officers so Pin not left in

charge again ..."

"Of course."

He paused. "I'm with the tactical group now. Enjoy the work."

"Isn't that where Vax Holser's posted?**

"Yes, sir. He's at Admiralty House this rotation." For a moment his clouded.

"What are your plans, sir?**

"Miss Wells and I are taking in the sights," I beckoned to Annie, introduced

her, "We're lunching with Lieutenant Tamarov, then Til stop at Admiralty House,"

He hesitated. "Sir, about Vax .,."

"Is he well?"

David Feintuch - Seafort 03 - Prisoner's Hope

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